


Merope

by MB_Westover



Series: The Red Right Hand [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Body Dysphoria, F/M, Gen, LMAO, Merope Raises Tom Riddle, Mother-Son Relationship, Original Character is Merope, Original Character is from the 1960s, Other, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, SI as Merope, Self-Insert, Slow Build, Soul Transmigration, Wands, Wizarding Culture (Harry Potter), Wizarding Politics (Harry Potter), Wizarding World (Harry Potter), Worldbuilding, it really wont, it wont go the way u think, no beta we die like Hedwig, this will get increasingly dark as we go on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:47:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26491396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MB_Westover/pseuds/MB_Westover
Summary: Millie Fontenot is an insignificant woman who dies. Merope Gaunt is an insignificant woman wholives.Where an SI/OC wakes up in Merope Gaunt’s body the day after giving birth to Tom Riddle.
Relationships: Former Merope Gaunt/Tom Riddle Sr., Merope Gaunt & Tom Riddle, Original Female Character(s) & Tom Riddle
Series: The Red Right Hand [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047220
Comments: 85
Kudos: 620
Collections: A Collection of Beloved Inserts, Amazing SI Stories, Amazing Thought provoking Gut wrenching stories, Favorite Self-Insert and OC-Centric Fanfics





	1. Forgotten Things, Forgotten People

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [If Them's the Rules](https://archiveofourown.org/works/284278) by [MayMarlow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayMarlow/pseuds/MayMarlow). 



> How can I go forward when I don't know which way I am facing?
> 
> — John Lennon

Millie Fontenot lived a half-life. She lived as a recluse, her head low, her mouth heavily shut, and her hands aching from early-onset arthritis that would flare up in English winters. She kept to herself, living quietly and easily forgotten.

It was easy. It was easy to be left alone, to smile at her neighbors who accepted that while the little cottage next to them was there, _she_ certainly wasn't.

So it was easy to say that when Millie Fontenot died, no one really noticed. No one noticed her pass on a chilly November morning, her aching joints scrabbling for air— _and oh please God, please don't let me go—_ and they certainly did not notice the way that the trees rattled, bare branches clattering together like bones in a graveyard.

She died alone, forgotten in death as she was in life.

* * *

" _Up! I said_ _up_ , _you useless, miserable wretch!" A knobby hand seized the girl's wrist, a startled cry leaving her half-parted lips._

" _I'm sorry Father! I'm sorry! I won't do it again!"_

_The man snarled, head whipping around to look at her. His thin lips were pulled back, revealing half-rotted crooked teeth. His grip was harsh and unyielding as he dragged her across the dirty floor, the girl—his daughter—pleading for him to let go._

" _Look!" His hand left her wrist, instead fisting his spindly fingers into her stringy hair, yanking her up, ignoring the way she cried out in pain as he shoved her face against the half-cracked window._

" _Look at your pest!" He spat, shoving her face further into the glass, her hands helplessly trying to push herself away from further smushing. "Dirty! Such pure and clean blood, daring to look at such filth!"_

_The girl cried, her sobs muffled as her father hissed down at her, his short, yet thin form seeming like a giant._

_It was an ugly scene._

* * *

" _Filth! A disgrace to the Most Noble and Most Ancient—"_

" _I'm sorry Father! I'm sorry! Please!" The girl cowered, her thin arms coming up to protect her head from her father's open hands. It did little but change his open hand hits into close fisted punches._

" _School?! School?! Is that where you want to go!? Filled with the filthiest—" Spittle flew into her face, his fist slamming down into her thin shoulder._

" _Just like her Father!" A voice crowed, sounding absolutely delighted at the events in front of him. "A disgusting little Squib! A shame on our House!"_

" _Shut your mouth, Morfin!" Her father swung his gaze to the other figure—Morfin, her brother—his mouth pulled back into its perpetual snarl. "You're no better! A stupid little retard; a stain upon_ _my_ _House!"_

_Morfin's face dropped into a scowl, his dark eyes dropping to his sister's._

_Anger._

* * *

_She shuffled, teeth chattering as she made her way to the building—the Church. It was warm, and the women dressed in dark robes were always friendly, offering to read her their Lord's word as she would quietly sip at the soup they would give her._

" _Sister." She smiled, her cheeks burning in the frigid weather as they stretched into a close-lipped smile. Father had knocked out one of her top teeth in a fit of rage the night before._

_The Sister smiled back—and wasn't that nice? The women in robes were sisters to all, and the man in white, the priest, was a father to all. A family to all—Bowing her covered head in a silent greeting as more people shuffled in._

_She would sit in the back corner. One of the Sisters had quietly delegated her to the back with a few others dressed much like her, their small group with rag-tag clothing standing out among the clean and neat clothes of the rest who attended church._

_The church was beautiful. Colored glass, candles burning softly, and Him, looking down so lovingly despite the pain quietly carved in his serene face. It was inspiring, with columns of carved stone reaching up to form a beautiful ceiling._

_She followed His gaze, her eyes struggling to focus, but she knew. He always sat there, beautiful and untouchable._

_Tom Riddle._

* * *

" _Don't touch me!" She shrieked, her hands desperately batting away her brother's. They pawed and grabbed, grimy and dirty and—_

" _Pure, so pure," Morfin crooned, dark eyes alight as he gripped her jaw painfully. "All for me, all for Morfin Gaunt—"_

" _No!"_

_His palm met her cheek, silencing her cries._

* * *

" _Read it for me," She urged, almost desperate. The Sister stared at her, perplexed as the woman shoved a half-torn page, yellowed with age and already eaten through at random across the page by rodents. "Please. I need to know."_

_Slowly, the Sister took it, her eyes curious as she looked over the odd ingredients, pale brows rising into her hairline after each one._

" _What sort of thing…? Where did you find this child? A_ _Love Potion?_ _This is child's play, my dear—"_

" _Please." The girl begged, her hands clasped together. The Sister pursed her lips, blue eyes flickering to the girl next to her._

" _Clean water, free of impurities, three Ashwinder eggs…"_

* * *

" _Don't you agree, Cecilia?"_

_She peered over the hedge, her odd eyes struggling to focus, hands clenching around the foliage almost excitedly._

" _Of course, Tom."_

_The voices laughed, sounding every bit prim and proper—and oh! How Tom sounded just like a prince! So smooth, so velvety—_

_There._

_Sharp, handsome features, dark haired and pale…And out of her reach._

_The blonde woman tittered, shifting the horse she sat side-saddle upon to bump gently into Tom's own._

* * *

" _I can't keep reading these things for you Merope," Edith sighed, folding a drab gray cloth over her forearm. The Sister turned away from Merope, her dark dress swishing with the movement as she put down the folded cloth. "I mean, it's all just preposterous nonsense! It would be better for you if you stopped messing with such nonsense and found sanction in the hands of the Lord. His word is right, you know. Right and wonderous."_

_Merope followed the Sister as she moved around the room, adjusting the candles and wiping off dust from table-nooks._

" _Please, Sister Edith, I hav'ta know what they say. I can't read—Father wouldn't allow that."_

_Edith sighed again, slowly stopping in her ministrations. Sister Edith was the only one who truly seemed to not mind Merope's presence, the other Sisters were polite, but she wasn't so dumb to miss the frosty undertones they used when they spoke. When they saw her. Odd and ugly, belonging to the mad family that lived in a cottage that was little more than a shack._

" _Fine." Edith sighed, turning around to face the other woman. And wasn't she a woman now? Merope was small and skinny, but she was rarely dishonest. If she claimed to be sixteen, then she was sixteen. Besides, it was Edith whom Merope came to when she had received her moonblood three years ago, all twitchy and nervous, scared to be given another label for strangeness when faced with the bleeding between her legs._

" _But this will be the last thing I will ever read for you," Edith warned._

" _Yes, yes!" Merope cried, joy lighting up on her ugly features, "Oh, thank you Edith, really, thank you."_

" _Because." She continued, silencing Merope's cheer with a stern look. "Because you will learn to read yourself."_

" _Oh." The woman across from her gave an anxious look, her thin lips disappearing into her mouth as she worried. "I-I don't think I can, Sister. I'm quite slow, you see—"_

" _Our Lord and Savior did not accomplish his divine works in a few moments," Edith interrupted, lifting a hand to silence the other woman. "Change takes time."_

* * *

_She cried, hands scrabbling for purchase among the thin branches of the hedge. The hand fisted in her lank hair was unrelenting however, pulling her back with a great yank, forcing her to stumble back with a cry._

" _Looking at that filth again, eh?" Hot breath curled around her ear, her brother's leering face looking almost giddy as he bent down and around her to make eye-contact._

" _M-Morfin." She greeted. Her voice trembled, body violently shaking. Morfin grinned at the sight, straightening up and kicking her down into the hard ground._

" _Filthy little stain!" He hissed, his face contorting in rage as he continued to speak. "Always looking at that vermin! Always looking, always looking, always_ _looking_ _, a disappointment upon our pure and noble blood!"_

_Merope inched away from her brother, his muttering turning into a shriek as he fell into unhinged laughter. His strabismus eyes watered, shut tightly as he barreled down to laugh, arms clutching his middle._

_It was a calm day._

* * *

" _Auror Bob Ogden," The man greeted, his red robes bright against the dreary setting in front of their home. The man stood awkwardly, obviously uncomfortable as he toed one of Morfin's unfortunate serpentine victims, the bones crunching with the movement. "There was a notice of magic used on a Muggle—"_

" _Of course there was!" Morfin spat, stumbling towards the Auror, wagging a thin finger with vehemence. "Filth deserved it! Nasty, disgusting, odious—"_

_Auror Bob Ogden stared at her brother as if he was an interesting specimen, his eyes wide as Morfin continued on his tirade. Her brother's hands were clenching and unclenching, at one point even making strangling motions, sallow skin blotchy with rage as he worked himself up._

" _I'm afraid I'll need to take you in, magic performed in-view and on a Muggle—"_

" _Filth! He should be_ _honored_ _to see magic from one such as I! A noble and pure descendant of Salazar Slytherin!" Morfin raved, his face curling into a sneer. "I will not be taken in by a has-been muggle-bitch."_

_Auror Ogden's face tightened, "Mister Gaunt—"_

" _Heir Gaunt!_ _Heir Gaunt!_ " _Morfin shrieked, "My blood is of the most ancient! Is of the most noble! Heir Morfin Gaunt, direct descendant of Lord Salazar Slytherin!"_

" _Heir Gaunt," Auror Ogden continued, "You will be taken in to stand trial for the usage of magic on a Muggle—"_

" _A filthy stain! Ruining my view! Breathing my air! Desecrating what is_ _mine_ _!"_

* * *

Oddities were common in Millie Fontenot's life. The badgers near her home who liked to be pet and cuddled were odd. The pottering neighbor down the street was odd with his brightly colored

spectacles made from bottle-ends. The baubles Millie hung in her cottage's rafters were odd. Even at times the pastor at the church was odd.

Millie however, would have to put the oddest on waking up in an unfamiliar home with an unfamiliar body and an unfamiliar woman gently rousing her with an equally unfamiliar newborn swaddled in her arms. Everything was odd. Even her familiar-yet-unfamiliar mind that was reeling from just about everything, even the simple window panes on the room's north wall. Or what she supposed was north.

"G'morning Miss Merope." The woman greeted, gently swaying the newborn in her arms; and wasn't that an odd name that she was calling her? "Tom here was a bit fussy, so I supposed that I would bring him up ta' yous. He's calm now that he's around his Mum, eh?"

She blinked twice at the woman, her words not quite registering at the frankly alarming situation she found herself in. Quite frankly, she had no idea where she was or who she was supposed to be. Her mind was uncharacteristically blank with drawing quick conclusions to her situation, and she seemed to find herself speaking on autopilot.

"Oh, thank you," Millie reached out, almost staring at her outstretched arms in disbelief at the movement. Before she could snatch her arms back—Millie really didn't remember giving birth or adopting a child within the last twenty-four hours, and by looking at little Tom she could tell that the babe was just about that old—the woman placed baby Tom into her arms, his newborn blues unnaturally fixing on her face with a keenness that had to be imagined. She was sure she read a book somewhere saying that babies didn't fully develop sight until they were around three months old.

_Tom._

Wasn't that such a normal name for the un-normal situation she seemed to be in?

It almost made her laugh at the absurdness. Here she was, twenty-seven and with a child that wasn't hers (but he felt like hers, he _did_ , a rightness that stirred so deeply in her breast as she looked upon his squashed face), being called by a name that wasn't hers, and in a home that was definitely _not_ hers.

Blinking once at little Tom, she turned her head to the woman who brought him in, "Where am I, exactly?"

The woman blinks, giving Millie a look as if she was most daft. It was a look she had received many-a-time before, especially on Sundays when Miss Adwell was up and about, the gossipy old woman more prone to looking judgingly down at someone from the length of her hawkish nose.

"Wool's Orphanage. You're in Lambeth, miss."

Millie hums, looking back down at baby Tom with a concertedly. She was quite a bit away from _her_ home, but even further away from Merope's. A two hour drive wouldn't mean much, however.

 _No.  
_  
She pauses, her hand smoothing over the pink skin of the baby's, his baby blues solemnly staring back at her.

Of course.

_There is nothing there. It is forgotten._

"-ope? Miss Merope?" The woman was waving a concerned hand across her vision, peering into her own eyes.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I just realized what quite a-ways from home I am," She gave the woman a strained smile.

"Mus' be with all that racket you kicked up last night," the woman replies, "Gave myself and half the children quite a fright, I say!"

Millie smiles, but it is strained and polite as the woman—the _matron_ , she said that this building was an orphanage, not a home—prattles on, her stiff nurse's cap bobbing with the movement. Millie had thought that the style of uniform had gone out of style many years ago, but from the look of the matron's long dress that was incorrect.

Mayhaps she imagined the shorter length? No, that was silly, it was the _style_ , no matter how uncomfortable she felt exposing her calves and ankles.

"May I have a glass of water?"

The matron pauses in her prattle, nodding once before bustling off, white skirts following behind her as the door to her room closes.

Millie leans back with a soft groan, the baby held in her arms gurgling at the movement as her back evens out. The room is small, the walls a pale gray, trimmed by white paint that had since gone yellow in age and wear. There is no bathroom, but there is a chamberpot in the corner that she suspects to _be_ the bathroom.

The baby gurgles again, wiggling in his tight cocoon-like prison head threatening to flop back if she did not hold a careful hand to support him. He was a quiet baby thus far, which Millie thanked God that he was. Her experience with children was limited to just seeing them in passing, wordlessly shrieking as they ran down the street without a care in the world.

Maybe she should feel overwhelmed. She was in a place that was not hers, with a baby that was not hers, matched with a name that was positively _not hers._

Except she didn't. She was Millie Fontenot, the quiet recluse who watched and waited rather than do anything. Biding herself time, observing the environment around her, it was how she lived twenty-seven years, raised with a pair of parents who did the same. Before they died at least.

Mum and Papa had passed away when she was fifteen. Merope ( _Yes?)_ would've been lucky if her only parent had passed away at fifteen.

The matron returns, the door creaking loudly as she places a glass of water on a rickety side-table. Her eyes are sharp, but are no less kind as she gives a once-over to Millie that makes her suddenly feel small.

"Where's that husband of your's?" The matron asks.

Millie's brows furrow, her eyes falling to the shining glint of gold on her knobby fingers. A small diamond rests in its center, simple and perhaps even sweetly picked for Merope. A handsome face floats in her mind, one that she has seen before but not with her own eyes.

"He's gone." She finds herself saying, the words sounding much sadder than how she truly felt. She did not know the husband of Merope, but her heart seems to ache at the thought of a noble jawline curving upwards to sharp cheekbones framed by perfectly coiled dark hair.

The rather ambiguous explanation most likely has the matron making her own story up in her head, evident by the way she seems to give Millie a pitying glance over her shoulder as she leaves the room. She does not mention that Merope's husband has left her to be pregnant and destitute, a victim of Merope. She was Merope now, in body at least, the mind of the woman to the body she found herself in was weak, shattered with whatever pieces left behind barely hanging on.

* * *

Her first steps are awkward and _wrong_ in a way that has her finding a center of balance that is suddenly too low as she catches herself on the wobbly night-table. She is considerably shorter in a way that has her blinking until her eyes felt overly-moist, if that was even possible.

The matron—"Missus Cole, dear. I can tell you don't remember and it does little to help the way your eyes seem to roll after my every movement"—had dressed her in a loose cotton dress that had spilled over her knobby toes (Millie had no idea that toes could be knobby, but after a night of wiggling them and one came out from under the blanket, she was proven wrong), but Millie had tied one side of the skirt with the extra fabric so it wouldn't catch and drag.

Tom, the baby, _her_ baby seems to watch with blue eyes that can't even properly make out anything other than blobs. He is a quiet baby, worryingly so to Millie who has no experience with children, let alone a babe. He cries only when he is hungry and when his diaper is soiled (that was an experience, and Mrs. Cole, the matron, was patient with her as she showed Millie time and time again how to change Tom).

Merope's breasts, (because _yes_ , somehow she was in the body of another), were small, almost flat if not for motherhood which hadn't made them swollen with milk, but at least would fill the smallest bust size. Millie was small in her own body, but Merope was tiny, both in height and weight. Ribs were easily counted, and Millie, when she was laying in bed wondering how being tossed into someone else's body could even happen, would sometimes try to name the bones she could see shadowed under pale skin that didn't quite match her own shade. It helped clear her head some nights. Sometimes it didn't.

Gone was the milky cream of her own complexion, marred only by small acne scars from where she picked at the bumps too much as a young teemager. In place of those acne scars were _actual_ ones, silvery and puckered on sallow skin. Each one told a story that Millie knew with startling clarity.

Her feet barely slid across the floor as she jerkily made her way to the water closet, always keeping her hand out to lean on the wall as she made her way through the quiet hallway. Missus Cole had promised to get some other workers to help her draw water for a bath that wasn't done with the bare minimum of a bucket of warm water as she scrubbed herself down with a worn towel-cloth.

Seeing herself in the mirror was a surprise, the figure and face not matching what she had known to inherently be herself since the day she was born.. It was cracked and dirty, but the sharper edges were rounded with balls of wax to keep curious children from cutting their fingers.

She traces the face in the mirror, Merope copying her movements as she leaned forward and inspected the face. There's a tight feeling in her chest as she observes who she is now.

Most girls held a sense of vanity, even those who pretend otherwise. Looking good was synonymous with worth in society, those less blessed with looks doing what they can to improve to the best form they could be.

But Merope, Merope was _ugly_.

Her eyes turned in two different directions, one barely focusing straight ahead, making Millie wonder how on earth she was able to see properly. Her skin was dull and sallow, her nose crooked and the tip pointing downwards to flat, thin lips. The only thing Merope seemed to have going for her was her hair, but it was lank and dull.

The first reaction was to cry, but all she could do is stare disbelievingly into the mirror at the person she now was. Gone was honeyed brown hair and her pale gray eyes she prized as her favorite trait. Of course, she knew there were differences, but seeing dark hair in her vision as she moved or a different skin tone was less jarring than knowing that she was now _ugly._

Inhaling sharply, she turned away from the mirror, going about her business and heading back to the room with Tom, whom she had left on the bed sleeping peacefully in a way that only babies seemed to do.

Millie wouldn't be sleeping well, that was for sure.

* * *

"You've been here a week."

Millie blinked, turning away from her self-given duty of washing the dishes from supper. There were only ten orphans in the congregate care of Missus Cole and the two other women who helped run the home. Usually Lace, one of the caretakers handled the dishes, but Millie felt guilty in not helping around the home while obviously overstaying the days she was supposed to. There was just nowhere to go, the small flat shared with Tom, Merope's husband, was gone, the landlord kicking her out once her husband had left.

"You can't stay here any longer, Merope," Missus Cole said.

The sugar sand on her hands felt sticky as she continued washing, baking soda dissolving easily in the water as she scrubbed a pot clean. "I know. I just don't know where else I can go."

The matron gave her a look, one that Millie couldn't quite identify before sighing.

"There's a maternity home down in London—"

"My son is not illegitimate, Missus Cole." The words come out sharper than intended, and Millie finds herself in the back of her mind cursing to herself. There were moments where she would say or do things with some sort of indescribable whim that was uncharacteristic of herself.

An awkward silence falls between the two of them, the kitchen clock ticking absently on the wall. It was fifteen to eight, and Missus Cole was looking at her as if she was a specimen she could not yet decipher.

Millie couldn't blame her. There were days she felt less like Millie and more like _someone else_. Even then she could not figure out her own mind.

"I didn't say Tom was illegitimate." Missus Cole said cautiously, her eyes sharp.

"Maternity homes are meant for unwed mothers. If you are suggesting that my son is illegitimate or are trying to hint at me leaving him up for adoption, I would leave him here and be on my way." Millie replied evenly. _But I won't._

A week into this strange, unfamiliar body. A week of being a mother to a child she had no recollection of birthing. She found herself highly maternal to Tom, and she supposed it was only normal. She fed him, clothed him, and cleaned him. It was only normal for these feelings and instincts to take over when she wanted nothing more than to curl up into her own mind and dissociate from the world that was decidedly strange.

Millie Fontenot was a woman from nineteen-sixty-two. Merope was a woman from forty years in the past that she was shoved into and forced to become by some unseen circumstance. She thought that when you died, your soul, mind, whatever, went forward as that was what time did. Go forward. The closest thing she had even attributed to "time-travel" was rewinding a film or tape to rewatch again.

"Most women's homes won't take you in Merope, you have a _child_. Dear, no matter what you say, they will assume the baby is from wedlock."

Perhaps she would've felt flattered at the concern the woman was displaying. Mary Cole was not a sentimental woman, but she was caring in her own way, Millie had learned. Religion usually brought either the best or worst in people, but Mary Cole was a dedicated Christian to helping those of lesser circumstances, Millie/Merope included.

Straightening her shoulders, she turned to the matron with the best stern look she could muster, thin lips pursed. "Then we should find a home that does, Mary. You can throw myself and my son out, but it is the dead of winter and I am sure the Lord will not look down on you too kindly."

She turned back to the dishes, scrubbing at the pot with a renewed vigor. Missus Cole's eyes bore into her side for a few moments before the clicking of her boot-heels followed her out of the kitchens.

Her hands were red as she cooed over Tom that night, raw hands careful as she wrapped him into a swaddle that was just right, the faded patterns of blue birds dancing across the soft blanket.

"I don't know where I am, Tom." She murmured, tracing over his squashed nose. It would properly take shape as he got older, but the flatness held by her son (because he was hers, she nursed him, cared for him, and had grown to love him as her own as the days turned into nights and the world kept turning), was endearing in a way that the old her would've found weird. "But I have you, right?"

And the lingering fear of _time_ would make itself known at times. The second World War hadn't yet happened, and from what she could tell, the Great Slump hadn't either. It made her nervous, drawing up what she could remember from her own parent's time, from the time her grandparents had lived and suffered through as adults raising their own.

Millie was already struggling; not only with herself but with the world around her. There were nights she would listlessly stare at the dark ceiling, tracing the outline of the water stain above as she fought the urge to cry. There was no reason to cry, she wasn't hurt, she was healthy, and she was alive. Alive with a child that wasn't hers ( _Tom is yours, he is yours just as he is mine)_ , in a body that wasn't hers, and memories that weren't hers.

Frankenstein's monster was real, and it was her. Fact, opinion, it didn't matter other than it was the only thought that seemed to run nonstop in her mind as she tried to dissociate and forget that she was in the body of an ugly woman with equally ugly memories


	2. Fingers in the Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil. The only crime is pride.
> 
> —Sophocles

Missus Cole is nice enough to give an extra dress as Millie begins to pack to leave with what meagre possessions both Tom and herself possess. She now has two different changes of clothes, both dresses of course, but Tom has more changes. There hasn't been a babe in years that had resided in Wool's Orphanage, so Missus Cole had given a few more changes of outfits to Tom. Jenny had given Millie her old rucksack, the youngest caretaker smiling a bit sadly as she showed Millie how to tie a sling around herself to hold Tom when she had her hands full.

"It's been lovely havin' another pair of hands 'round," Jenny said, pale brown hair almost ashy in the cold morning sun catching through the windows. "Y'Sure Missus Cole won't let you stay a bit longer? Little Alice enjoys your company."

Millie hummed, "I'm not a registered caretaker. I need to find myself a proper job and board for myself and Tom."

"Oh." The other woman seemed to deflate for a moment, and Millie got the sense that Jenny was a lonely person, despite the amount of people around her. Missus Cole was fifteen years her senior and while Lace seemed to be closer in age to both Jenny and Merope's body, the other caretaker was much too busy to finish her tasks as quickly as possible to flirt with some of the passing men in the Clapham Commons.

At least, that's what one of the children had muttered after Missus Cole had asked where her missing caretaker was.

"I'll be sure to write." Millie says, folding the faded green dress Missus Cole had gifted to her. It was old and the hem was moth-eaten, but she wouldn't say no to any charity given her way. She was in an unfamiliar time, in an unfamiliar body, and lastly she had nothing. Merope had nothing to her name except for the babe named after a husband who had left.

"You can write?" Jenny gives her a dubious look and Millie resists the urge to say something snappish. Merope was barely literate, holding onto a five-year-old's reading comprehension, but Millie was an avid reader. So, even though the comment was justifiable (Merope didn't exactly scream educated), it still rankled her.

"Of course I can. Why wouldn't I be able to?"

Jenny hums, stuffing a pair of woolen socks into the shabby rucksack she had graciously given. The room fell into a silence, a weird feeling between the two of them that Millie couldn't quite describe.

Tom was downstairs with one of the older children looking after him. While most of the orphans avoided her purely out of her odd looks, they had no problem cooing over Tom. He was a cute baby, so much so that Millie had thanked God that he would not have to suffer with being inadequate, both in society's eyes and his own self-worth as he aged.

She ignored her reflections as best as she could, not wanting to see the body she now inhabited.

"Why'd you name him Tom?"

"Pardon?"

Jenny turned to her, tilting her head curiously. "Tom. Why'd you name him that? I heard from Missus Cole that you gave him a strange middle name; what was it? Marpo? Merlin?"

"Marvolo." She said, her tone flat as the image of an ugly old man with rotted teeth flashed in her mind. Millie could not comprehend why Merope would name her son after a father who could cares less for her, and even less about his grandson.

The Gaunts were a strange sort. Stranger than most people Millie have met, and she found herself balancing precariously on a line between being strange and being normal. It was odd, especially after she had spent the last decade or so being her own brand of odd.

If she wanted to keep her sanity, she would have to pretend as if everything was fine. The better she lied to herself, the better she would adapt.

The other woman snapped her fingers, "Yes! That! Tom Marvolo Riddle. It sounds awfully odd, don't you think?"

"I don't get why it would be."

"Well, I don't know, it sounds incomplete." She shrugged, pinning a few of Tom's diaper pins into a folded handkerchief so they wouldn't get lost in the bag.

"His name sounds perfectly fine."

Jenny huffs, but doesn't pursue the conversation. The two women fall into an easy lull of silence, packing what meager possessions she acquired in her stay at Wool's Orphanage.

Really; she would have to come back and thank Missus Cole when she had her two feet under herself comfortably. Surviving in a time that wasn't hers and pretending that everything was just peachy-keen took their toll through sleepless nights that had less to do with Tom's feeding schedule and more with her racing mind.

Tucking a faded baby-blanket with the barest hint of being eaten by moths on its edges, she clapped her hands together. Finally.

"We should head down. Missus Cole said that a taxi would drop you off near that boarding home for women. What's it called?" Jenny picks up the rucksack to carry while she follows Merope down the narrow hall leading downstairs.

"Elmora's Home for Needy Women." Millie was not a fan of the name of the boarding home, but it was one of the few who allowed single mothers. Most women during this time gave up their kids or aborted. The latter was kept secret, and very few doctors would do it, in fear of being jailed. The risks of an abortion wasn't all that safe as well, especially for the mother. It was one of those laws that Millie had familiarity with, but she was aware of Parliament making noise over considering to legalize it before she was popped into Merope. Of course, abortion was a sensitive topic, especially in politics which made everything more sensitive than it ought to be.

Her feet hit the bottom step as Jenny continues to chatter, most of her words flying through one ear and out of the other as a pair of children skip by, greeting the two women with flying pigtails and rosy cheeks. Despite the rather washed-out clothes and obviously altered hems, Missus Cole did her best to provide for the children with what little they had.

It made Millie uneasy. She had lived through the second World War with childhood memories and the faint taste of ash in the back of her mouth, but her parents did a well-off job in sheltering her from it. She could hardly recall anything beyond dates and the way the earth would tremor as the Germans flew over London.

"Merope? You okay?" Jenny's dark eyes peer into hers, concern shown on her thin face. It's a stark reminder to Millie in how she actually looks now as Jenny stares at her.

She gives a small smile. "Sorry. I was thinking about Elmora's."

It's a lie, but its the first one that comes into her mind as she follows after the other woman. Jenny is plain-faced, but next to Merope, she could be called a beauty. The thought makes her vanity rear its head, and she has the brief thought of tripping Jenny in an urge of petty jealousy. She doesn't, of course, but the thought lingers as they enter the largest room in the building.

Tom is in the lap of an older girl, her blonde hair dangling over his squished face as two other preteens giggled over him. He was a silent baby, but it didn't deter the other children in the orphanage from sneaking looks or trying to hold him. There hadn't been a child younger than three in the orphanage for many years, and Millie was sure that the novelty of having someone younger than that would wear away if they had another addition around Tom's age.

Jenny waves her off, taking Millie's packed rucksack with her as she heads out the other opening in the room to Missus Cole's office. The matron would be paying for her taxi as a last show of Christian goodwill and then Millie would be on her own.

Making her way over to the three girls, she ignored the scrunched up face one of them made as they caught sight of her. She bent, taking Tom from the eldest girl's arms easily enough, his small weight held against her chest comforting in a way that has her unconsciously relaxing.

This is her son. This is Merope's son.

She is Merope now.

Adjusting Tom in her arms so his head wouldn't loll back and god forbid, snap, she made her way out the same doorway that Jenny did, absently thanking the girls for looking after Tom as she left. The halls of the orphanage are easy to navigate, both by the familiarity of staying for about a week and by the layout of the building itself.

Wool's Orphanage possessed three stories, the third being a shallow basement dug by the previous owner of the building before it was sold to the government to make way for a congregate care home. The basement was basically a larder, but Jenny remarked that a few holiday baubles were boxed up in the basement when she helped take down their Christmas decorations just two days after Tom's birth. The ground floor possessed the kitchen, Missus Cole's office, and a few other rooms that were converted to fit the needs of caring for multiple children. Their parlor was turned into a playroom, toys worn and neatly placed into wooden bins with the paint chipping off of the edges. What Millie assumed to be the previous living room was sectioned off with a wall, with Missus Cole being the only one to sleep in the connected room to what would be a nursery if it was in use.

Seeing around a dozen empty cribs had filled her with a weird feeling that she didn't want to revisit. Millie was glad that she was put into an unused room, the previous occupant being the oldest orphan's before he moved out, hitting adulthood and therefore no longer under Missus Cole's watching eye.

The second floor held most of the bedrooms, with a cramped washroom at the end of the hall. The children shared the rooms by pairs, leaving around three extra rooms, one room shared with both Lace and Jenny.

The attic was a thin layer and she was unsure of counting it as an extra level in the house, but Missus Cole used the attic as a time-out area for the worst behaved children. The idea of leaving a child in the dark up in the attic had horrified Millie, but she stayed quiet. She was under the matron's goodwill and care, she would not bite the hand that fed her and Tom.

Missus Cole was already waiting for her with Jenny, the matron giving her a stiff once-over before humming to herself. A stack of white papers was held in her hands, and she tucked them into her rucksack that Jenny held before turning to close herself back in her office. Gold lettering on the door shined, reading Matron of Wool's Orphanage.

"Missus Cole isn't too big on goodbyes," Jenny takes her by the arm, her grip loose as she leads Millie out of the building. "Prefers not to say them, m'not sure why, but she always has her reasons."

"It's fine. She's done enough for me already."

Jenny snorts, "More than most. Missus Cole is a good Christian, though, so it should be expected."

"Has she taken in anyone else?" Millie questioned, tilting her head curiously. Tom gurgles quietly.

Brown hair bobs, the bun it was tied into bouncing with the movement of her nod. Jenny easily pushes the door open, the overcast skies bright compared to the shaded halls of Wool's that it takes a moment for her eyes to adjust, blinking quickly as gravel crunches underfoot.

"Of course. Elizabeth's mum was like you." Her eyes dip to the wedding band on Merope's finger. "Although she wasn't married. She left Elizabeth with us though. Haven't seen her since."

"Elizabeth?"

"The girl that was looking after Tom." Jenny turns then, bouncing in her step as she rushed to the taxi waiting on the curb.

This would be her first step outside of whatever she had settled herself in. Turning to look behind her, the faded paint of Wool's looked right back at her, the windows reflecting the gray of the sky.

"Goodbye." She murmured. There was a feeling in her chest that she couldn't quite place as she looked over the building. Something was missing.

Turning away from the building, she gave one last close-lipped smile to Jenny as she sat herself in the taxi, the driver glancing at her in his mirror.

"Elmora's Home for Needy Women?"

Millie pauses, biting her lip. The ring gleamed. "Would you mind taking me to a few places before we head there?"

"As long as you got payment, miss, I don't mind."

* * *

The man across the desk stares at her like she is something he would have wanted to wipe off of his shoe. She wouldn't blame him. If she had someone come into her office looking like she did with a child held tightly to their chest, she would do that fancy thing most big men did in movies and call in a secretary to see her out.

Thankfully that didn't happen.

"Missus Riddle," the man greets, although doesn't get up to actually greet her. He continues staring at her like she is some sort of interesting creature.

"I was told to come to you if I wanted to file for a divorce." Millie says, ignoring the dubious look he gives her as if he cannot believe someone married her. "I would like to file for a divorce."

"I see." The man settles into his chair, and Millie glances at the name placard that dubs him as E. Towery. "Will this be a consensual divorce?"

She folds her legs over one another, bouncing Tom carefully as he begins to garble nonsensically. She hasn't fed him since early morning, and it was now mid-afternoon. He was sure to start crying, but Millie honestly hoped he would be able to wait until she was done.

Towery leans forward to pluck a pen, rummaging through a few papers on his desk before finally pulling out a rather thin packet, considering it is legal work. Millie has no idea why Merope did not file for a divorce the moment Tom Sr. had left, but from what she could unscramble from her own memories, the woman before her was helplessly in love with him.

"Maiden name?" Towery asks, lifting his head up to look at her.

"Gaunt."

"Gaunt as in thin?"

She nods, and he scribbles a few more things across the papers, flipping through the packet.

"Reason for divorce as well as the name as your husband."

"Abandonment. His name is Tom Riddle."

"Middle name?" He asks, flipping through a few more papers.

Millie frowns, her brows furrowing.

"Middle name, Missus Riddle?" He prompts.

Tom coos, wiggling his swaddled form as she tries to remember a memory that isn't really hers. Towery is looking at her with a brow raised, the glasses perched on his nose looking awfully close to just falling off. "I don't think I can remember."

Towery makes a face but doesn't say anything, writing a few more things before circling something and handing both the papers and pen to Millie. She leans forward, holding Tom carefully as Towery points to a circled blank line. "Sign here. You will need to have the paper notarized, preferably by a legal body, but as it is consensual, you can ask your local priest to notarize the papers. Your spouse will need to sign to make the divorce consensual, if not, you will need to file with court for a plea."

"Will that cost anything?" Millie asks, twisting her wedding band. She had promised the taxi driver her ring as long as he would drive her around for the day.

"Two hundred and fifty pounds. You will also need to provide evidence of abandonment."

She signed Merope's name easily, almost messing up on the first 'e' and almost signing her own 'i'.

_Merope Mara Gaunt Riddle._

"The papers will retain its legal status for a maximum of ninety days. You can turn them into any legal government body, such as a bank, once signed." Towery explained, taking the pen back and neatly pressing the papers into an envelope.

"Have a good day, Missus Riddle."

She ends up walking to Elmora's Home for Needy Women, the taxi driver long since gone, perhaps from the impatience of waiting. She had spent three hours waiting to just get the papers for her divorce and had spent another hour filling out blank spaces for Towery.

A police officer points her the right way after she takes a wrong turn, clutching the rucksack on her shoulder as she slowly begins to panic in not being able to find the women's home. Tom grumbles, fed in the nice bathrooms of the bank, but otherwise doesn't make another sound as he wiggles his little head to smack into her neck.

Millie winces, murmuring a few words to hopefully calm him. Tom is only a week old but surprisingly responsive to her words and actions around him. She supposes it's normal, but there's a feeling of unease sometimes when his baby blue wanders aimlessly around the room before falling on her. He obviously can't see anything more than blurs at this age, but there's something much too aware with the baby she has claimed as her own.

He is hers though, as her body and some part of her mind tends to scream. It's natural to feel comfort when she holds him, and she finds herself falling into the maternal role of a mother much easier than she thought, especially without the extra hands of help in Wool's Orphanage around. Millie considers the possibility that perhaps her mind is adapting just as she is trying to do in order to survive whatever she had fallen into.

Death was supposed to have an end.

Continuing was never a thought, especially not as someone else. She had heard of how the Indians believed about being reborn, and it was the closest thing she could attribute to her situation now, but she wasn't really reborn as much as she just woke up as someone else.

Perhaps if she was anyone else she may have gone mad by now, but Millie knew better to keep her mouth shut and watch. Pretending to be something or someone else was easy as long as she managed to convince herself enough to easily fall into the-lie-that-really-wasn't-a-lie. The more she fell into a role, the more she would become comfortable with it and eventually, properly adapt to her surroundings.

"Pardon me, miss."

Millie jerked her head up, blinking at the oddly-dressed stranger in front of her. The man looked as if he was still stuck in the Victorian age, and she wondered if he was part of a musical or play that was performing somewhere. The man tipped his hat at her, grimacing as he met her eyes and swept off into the crowd.

She stared at his retreating figure until he was fully swallowed by the passing foot traffic, her eyes then trailing up to the establishment he had exited from. Charing Cross Road was a busy place, and the shops lined on each side were just as busy, with the faint clopping of horses echoing along the streets.

Dark windows hid the inside, but there was a proud iron-wrought sign naming the place as ' _The Leaky Cauldron_.' A pub then, discerning it from its name. Many in the United Kingdom enjoyed naming their pubs after rather fantastical names, the White Hart on Drury Lane popping into her head.

Sighing, she turned away from the pub, despite the way her stomach growled. She had barely a pence to her name and she would have to save whatever money for Tom or for the rent for staying at Elmora's Home for Needy Women.

Her hand dipped into her skirt-pocket, fingering what little money she had given to her by both Lace and Jenny before looking back at the pub. Pubs were good for being cheap and having rather filling food, so she supposed it wouldn't hurt to take a bite?

No. Millie told herself, shaking her head before turning to head further down the street. She needed to be at the women's home by nightfall, as she was sure she remembered Missus Cole mentioning that there was a curfew. Besides, it wasn't as if she had to take care only of herself. Tom's weight on her chest as she held him carefully was an easy reminder that she needed to scrounge and save whatever money she had if she wanted to make it until Tom was old enough to help support their small household.

Not for the first time, Millie wished that she was some medieval peasant with only the worry of a farm to look after. She supposed it would be much easier than surviving through what the next few decades would bring.


	3. Logically Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one's emotions."
> 
> ―Ayn Rand

Tom's cries wake her in the early hours of dawn, the barest slivers of the sunrise peeking over the horizon, sneaking their warm rays around cold buildings to illuminate the barest of glows in her small room afforded to her.

Elmora's Home for Needy Women was not as bad as the name sounded. The establishment was run _not_ by a woman named Elmora, but rather the founder's great-niece. The building was large and furniture was sparse, but the basics and necessities were provided.

Rolling over, Millie groaned as her hips popped, swaying on her feet for a moment before trudging tiredly over to a wailing Tom. He had been well behaved these past few weeks, and was just two days shy of being a full month older.

Millie had been in this body for a month now and while she liked to think that she had come to adapt and accept it as her own, she had still not looked into any reflective surface, mirrors especially. Her time in the bathroom was shared by three other women with their young children, was always cut short with the unwillingness to look into the mirror―even if accidental.. It was easier to think that she was in her own body without the reminder of the ugly face that accompanied this one.

She leaned over the crib to pull Tom into her arms, his face blotchy as he cried his displeasure. The top of her dress easily came undone as she tiredly unbuttoned the top, Tom eagerly latching onto her breast, baby blues staring up at her intently.

"You're a few hours early." Millie said, staring right back at the babe whom she had claimed as her own. Tom would usually wake just as the sun crested the horizon. This little schedule change had thrown her off.

Tom only stared, suckling greedily as she sighed, padding over to the worn rocking chair. Rent would have to be paid soon, and it was difficult to find work that wasn't in a factory. She may be literate and have mathematics up her sleeve, much more than most hopefuls looking for a job, but even her literacy or understanding of maths would sway potential employers once they met her face-to-face.

It was aggravating.

But of course, life was never fair and Millie had to accept the fact that jobs would not come tumbling into her lap as easy as it would for others. She had a child with no familial help to land back on―she would never trust Merope's relatives―and so her hours were more restrained than most.

Not that anyone cared in the nineteen-twenties.

The stress of upcoming rent had simply reached its level where Millie found herself easily dissociating from the problem, marking through 'WANTED' advertisements in the morning and evening newspapers she found discarded in the nearby park. Money was too tight to be spending on something she could easily get for free. Millie was this close to flinging her hands up in the air and blasting it all, but she couldn't. It wasn't just her life she had to think about, it was little Tom's as well.

Pulling Tom up and over her shoulder as she began to gently burp him, Millie sighed. The little weight he had was comforting at times like this, all three kilograms of him. She had always thought that death would end her mortal troubles. Guess not.

She had hoped that at least there would be something available for work, but it was common sense. No one wanted to hire a woman with responsibilities that lay outside of work, especially if those responsibilities included a child of some kind.

Tom cooed and she hummed in response, leaning back more into the rickety rocking chair that was missing two of its splats. Millie had a hunch that this rocking chair had been here as long as Elmora's had been open.

Hopefully she could get one of the women to babysit Tom while she headed out for another day of trying to find work. No way was she ever going to work at a factory, she wasn't stupid to what sort of conditions were seen as acceptable (they weren't) and how much greedy employers were willing to ignore this time period.

Getting up, she laid Tom on the bed, keeping a careful eye on him as she began to get ready for the day, grumbling over the laces on the back of one of the more nicer dresses Missus Cole had given her. Tom waved his hands from the bed, babbling babyish to himself and testing what limited mobility he had. He was an active, yet surprisingly easy child who only fussed when needing something.

Millie was thankful that while she may be in one of the most strangest, peculiar, and head-scratching situations than any other human in history―probably―at least the extra plus-one she was saddled with was easy. Poor Agnes, a single mother who lived down the hall from Millie, had a child who wouldn't stop screeching unless held. That wouldn't have been a problem, except the child was nearing his second year and was quite heavy.

Pushing the comb through lank strands, she expertly pulled her hair into a neat bun, twisting her hand out from the ribbon she had been using as a hairband. The nineteen-twenties lacked small miscellaneous things that Millie would've never given a second thought about until she was faced with not having it.

Funny how many things you never realized you took for granted until it was gone.

_(There are things everyone takes for granted.)_

Sniffing, she turned back to Tom, lifting him with careful hands to support his lolling neck and replacing the spot he was just in with one of the lighter cloths she owned before swaddling him in said cloth. It wasn't patterned and Millie had to admit that some part of her pride chafed at the way she was living now.

Poverty was a real thing, it had always been a real thing since the time humans developed the smarts to become apex predators in a way that the world had never seen before. It was just...Millie never had to worry about how empty her pockets were. She wasn't well-off in the sense that whatever money she had would carry on generationally, but it would at least support her own lifetime if she decided to not work.

The war wasn't kind to Britain, but Millie knew what would happen better than anyone else in these coming years. Who else in the world could say that they were put in a body that wasn't theirs? Who else could say that they were thrown forty years in the past? No one. She was lucky that at least she was _in_ Britain.

God, she could only imagine the horrors if she woke up in someone _not_ Merope, and rather one of the targeted groups by Nazi Germany. She had lost a much older uncle she never met because of the second World War, one Charles Fontenot, charged for homosexuality while living as a pianist in Austria. Millie knew that while her father was sad about the loss of his older sibling, she could tell there was a relief in not having a gay brother.

Millie couldn't say the same; she never met the man beyond uncolored photographs and wistful stories of a younger brother who used to look up to his adult sibling.

Anyways, the only complaints Millie had about being in Merope, was that she was both ugly and poor. One of those complaints could be fixed, but unfortunately the other one couldn't. It was just a shame that with beauty came more job opportunity, but as long as she could show that she was literate and had a grasp of mathematics that she was sure most women in the nineteen-twenties didn't, she had a little boost than if she was actually Merope in this time period.

Closing her room door behind her, Millie made her way down the hall, pausing to let two chatting women pass her, their arms full of laundry. Most of the women here ignored Millie and she couldn't say that she wasn't surprised. Humans liked to interact with people that looked _normal_. There were the few nice ones though, a pity that they were some of the more enthusiastic Christians.

Not that she had a problem with religion. Millie was religious, but she believed that her connection with God was just between her and the great man above. Faith needed little prodding and pushing when it gave you hope in situations where you were lost.

"Dorothy?" Millie peeked her head around the corner, the patterned wallpaper of pale yellow vines giving the room a cheery yet subdued vibe.

"Oh! Merope!" Dorothy exclaimed, her arms full with one fussy toddler. Dennis, if she remembered right. He was Dorothy's first, her second on the way if it was any inclination by her very full and round belly. A lot of the other mothers ignored Dorothy for getting pregnant _again_ while unmarried, and while speculation went around that she was secretly a whore for the amount of money she seemed to comfortably sit on, Dorothy swore up and down that her children had the same father.

Problem was, no one knew _who_. So of course gossip spread.

"I wanted to ask if you could watch Tom while I go job-hunting today," Millie said, smoothing a hand over Tom's small back. She didn't trust the other women to watch Tom while she was away, and Dorothy was kind enough to watch anyone's child when someone went out for work. Thing was, no one wanted their kids around who they thought was a whore.

Hypocrisy at its finest, Millie liked to think. She was one of the few who actually were married when they had a child in Elmora's. Standards for this time were incredibly backwards at times, but Millie was nothing if not adaptable.

"Of course!" Dorothy says, her brows furrowing into a frown as she manhandles Dennis to let go of her dress sleeves. "I'll just need to ask you to come back before Big Ben rings four. Dennis and I are going to visit his Da."

"Then it's no problem. I'll be sure to be back before then. I just fed him so he should be hungry for another two hours," Millie passes Tom over to the other woman, her hand lingering for a moment before pulling them back to fold in front of her awkwardly. Dorothy is cooing at Tom, he is a rather handsome baby even if he still has the squished features all young infants do, and Millie takes that moment to give a short wave before leaving.

* * *

London is always busy and Millie can easily say that she hates it. The sky is overcast (when is it not, blasted British Isles), and she finds herself more irritable than usual after the third rejection. Granted, she didn't even seem to keen on working at a tailor shop, her Mum used to always say that her stitches looked like they were done by a blind donkey if the donkey somehow had thumbs, but she had hoped that they would consider her as an accountant or assistant of some sort.

Unfortunately not.

Glaring at the streets, she quickly crosses before the horse-drawn carriage could trample her, traffic laws nearly nonexistent as the flow of traffic consists of people actually _used_ to the crowded chaos. She's at Charing Cross and it is busier than the rest of the streets she had been on, people going in and out of pubs for their afternoon lunch.

So with what few coins in her pocket, she sucks it up and decides to duck into the least busy pub, considering the foot-traffic around it. She would just have to bring whatever leftovers back to Elmora's and hope that she could hide the food well enough in the icebox so no one would steal it.

There was a food-thief in Elmora's and most of the women had good money on it to be Peggy (short for Peggaline, _what_ in the world were her parents thinking naming her _Peggaline_ ), because of the way she had to adjust her dresses every other month to accommodate her growing girth.

A few fellows exit from the pub with pointed hats and when Millie glances at the dark tinted windows, she's not surprised to see the same iron-wrought sign dubbing the place The Leaky Cauldron. Despite not being able to see inside the establishment, it seems fairly busy with the amount of customers coming in and out of its ever-open door, so she decides to take the chance and slips in front of a man with a rather impressive beard, shooting him an apologetic smile and ignoring the shocked stare he gives at her ugly face.

Swept inside by the revolving number of patrons, she easily finds her footing to the edge of the bar, both a barman and bar wench seamlessly serving drinks and food with nary a pause in work. If it wasn't for the skinny and boyish face of the barman (dare she say bar _boy_ ), she would assume the pair had worked here for all their lives.

Edging a little closer to the counter, she hesitated in calling over one of the pair, not wanting to break their seamless concentration in work. That, and she couldn't locate a menu for the life of her. So, unable to look busy and wait for the right moment to ask, she stood awkwardly for a few moments before easing into the barstool beside her, feet dangling freely.

Millie had barely a moment to herself before the barman swept over, a platter of what looked to be Yorkshire pudding and an arrangement of meat pies swaying in his hand rather precariously.

"Welcome to Leaky!" He greeted, smiling widely and rushing past rather comically. She watched him effortlessly serve a group of eight before sweeping back over to her, the platter now tucked under one arm. "Now, what would you like?"

"I am unfamiliar with the menu, it seems." Millie says, ignoring the way his eyes seem to _boggle_ at the thought of someone not knowing their menu. Regulars must be their base customers then.

"You from Britain?" The barman asked, dark hair flopping over his forehead as he slightly leaned over the bar to inspect her.

"Does my accent make it obvious?" She said dryly, one brow lifting in question.

He flushes red, the bright color spectacularly making his pale freckled skin look blotchy before he averts his eyes to the side. He seems to struggle with coming up with words, the top and the bottom of his lips pulling in and out of his mouth.

"It's not that, it's just...Well everyone's been to the Leaky."

Millie's brow hiked higher, "I'm sure the King hasn't."

He waved her off, "The royal house has been a Squib line since Edward the Fourth and Elizabeth Woodville. Was a bit of speculation if Princess Mary or Prince John would be attending Hogwarts, but that didn't happen."

"Squib line?" Millie questions, because she has surely never heard of the word _Squib_ before. Not to mention, the barman is now definitely looking at her as if she was from another planet altogether. She sure felt like it, so it wouldn't be far off, but Millie didn't think that time-travelers were added to the 'alien' group.

"You're joking, right? Did'ya go to Hogwarts?" He looks her up and down, thin lips pulling into a frown at whatever he assesses because he then shrugs and sighs. "Halfblood, are ye? Heard it's been hard for those with more Muggle in 'em lately. Not to be offensive! My cousin married a right o' Muggle and she went to Fenshire too. You go there then?"

Half of his vocabulary made her head spin and Millie had the feeling she was somewhere that she wouldn't fit in. Slang changed every half-decade, but she had never heard the term _Muggle_ or _Halfblood._ They sounded like things from a story, not real life.

"No, I went to Headington." Merope didn't but Millie did, as usual. The woman whose body she inhabited accomplished. Headington was founded in nineteen-fifteen, so about a decade ago. Of course when she went to Headington's in her own body, the school was nearing its forty-fifth year.

"Haven't heard of that, m'fraid." He leaned back, pulling a glass from under the counter and polishing it off with a rag I eyed dubiously. "Butterbeer, pumpkin juice, firewhiskey, and our special drink today is mulberry mix."

The drinks weren't familiar to her―pumpkin juice, _really?_ ―and Millie began to think that maybe it wasn't her that was out of place but rather the establishment. The longer she sat at the bar, the longer she began to notice things that were downright odd.

The two men at the end of the bar were doubled over, their faces ruddy and laughing gailey at whatever joke was shared between them. That wasn't odd, it was normal to see such things in any English pub, but what _was_ odd was their clothes.

Cloaks were settled around their shoulders, honest to god _cloaks_. The fashion that she had gotten used to in the busy nineteen-twenties seemed to be virtually absent in the pub, granted by a few who wore long overcoats more in style with the London of today. Even then, those who looked normal threw the outfit off by witch-like pointed hats on their heads or the Victorian-like clothes peeking underneath.

It felt like she had stepped into a different time. Electricity, which was becoming more widespread in businesses especially, was missing, but that wasn't so odd as it was an expensive expense. What was odd―

"Holy Mother of Mary―" Millie breathed, watching one of the patrons lift a thin, knobby stick and slur something out, a bright ball of light forming at the tip of the stick.

The barman looks at her weird, shrugging to himself and sliding over the glass he was just polishing. "Butterbeer, on the house. You feelin' okay, miss?"

Unable to take her eyes off of the glowing stick she nods, flustered. "Yes, yes, I'm quite alright. Just feeling a bit peaky."

If feeling peaky was seeing a stick light up like it was a telly on at midnight, then she should be more concerned. Except that wasn't the case.

Her hands tightened over the hold on her glass, the barman sweeping off to attend to the every-fluctuating number of customers, leaving her alone with her racing thoughts. She tried to come up with some sort of explanation, but lo-and-behold, the man was still waving around his stick, the ball of light steadfast in handing on. It didn't look like any kind of torch, so she was inclined to ignore the pressing voice in the back of her head whispering _magic_ in a tone that was not quite hers.

Millie had never felt more confused in her life, and that's saying a lot for someone who was deposited in another's body with a kid that was hers (yet not).

Lifting up the mug of beer― _Butterbeer_ , her mind corrects―she takes a hesitant sip, almost pleasantly surprised by the similar taste to butterscotch. It's a sweet drink, but cool and light on her tongue. She hadn't quite had a beverage like this before, and finds her secret sweet tooth appeased.

Millie then spends the next hour observing the other patrons, ignoring the dawning realization shaking her like a bedraggled doll, and trying to come up with some logical explanation for what she was witnessing now that she was properly paying attention. Of course, things like magic and witches were storybooks, so they stubbornly stayed organized in that part of her mind, never mind the fact that she just witnessed the bar-wench levitate an order of drinks to a full table.

There was a perfectly reasonable explanation to all this, she was certain.

* * *

Dorothy is excitable as she hands over Tom, herding her son with an expert hand that Millie can only hope to achieve as motherhood becomes more natural, bidding her farewells and telling her in a rather hushed pace that she left some food for Millie in the icebox before rushing out of the door. If Millie wasn't so dazed from today's events, maybe she would notice the way Dorothy's hair is the barest inch out of place and how her eyes dart nervously, but she doesn't.

Tom is a welcome weight in her arms, his soft scent loosening the tension in her body as she hugs his smaller body closer to her own. He babbles softly, cooing in delight, snatching the loose strands of her hair she had neatly put up this morning.

One hand carefully pries his grip open, hair could be potentially sharp to the soft skin on baby hands and she was not going to risk an open cut, no matter how small or shallow it may be. The nineteen-twenties didn't have the same sanitary regulations her own time did, and Millie had caught some of the other women gossiping about her habits of wiping everything down.

Gossiping bats, but she could proudly say that Tom was the cleanest babe in Elmora's. At least in her eyes.

(Yes, she was biased.)

A trip to the icebox in the shared kitchens has her suspicions confirmed, and she sighs. Peggaline had of course snatched whatever it was that Dorothy left for her, so she contents herself by sneaking a slice of that fancy artisan bread the thief seems to like so much. One of these days she will figure out how to keep Peggaline's meaty hands off of her food, but she is simply too tired to start now.

The stairs creak under her light footsteps, the sound of someone's scratchy radio singing further down the hall. Despite it being late afternoon, the sun's rays finally peek out from behind gray clouds, casting white rays of light in the long hallway, shared by the rooms with uncovered windows.

Her own door is closed, the scratched out names of former inhabitants marring the smooth wood of the door. _T. Kirkland, R. MacCrimmon,_ followed by a dozen others before landing on one _M. Gaunt_. While not legally divorced yet, she was easily allowed use of Merope's maiden name.

The room doesn't feel like home. Nowhere in the time does, but it is the best she can do to make a home right now. All that mattered was keeping a roof over her and Tom's heads and food in their mouths. Little else mattered besides this, and with the days growing closer to her first payment, she found anxiety creeping steadily across her mind.

Tom blinks up at her as she places him on the middle of the bed, waving chubby baby arms and almost smacking himself in the process. If she was a better mother, maybe she would take that as a sign to swaddle him, but instead she peels off her clothes, slipping into a linen nightgown despite it not being close to bedtime.

Lifting Tom, she makes for one of the bathrooms, steadfastly ignoring the mirror handing on one end of the wall as she strips Tom of his own clothes, placing them carefully on the sink's counter before locking the door. He is much too small to bathe in the tub, and Millie didn't fancy climbing in the tub without wiping it down, never mind that she was too tired to do so.

There's a small basin in the corner, saved for the babes in the home. It takes a bit to find the perfect temperature, Tom is an awfully picky baby when it comes to bath time so she takes a while before settling on a more cool-warm feel of the water before carefully sliding him in.

"I, know, I know," she murmurs, soothing Tom as he begins to whine. "Mummy is sorry, I know."

His whines turn into hiccups, hiccups into fussy baby noises that inch closer to a cry than anything else. Rolling up her sleeves while keeping one careful hand on Tom so he doesn't fall under, she smooths the water over his head with a handful, careful to avoid getting too much on his face.

Thankfully, Tom doesn't resort to full-blown crying, so the bathroom is filled with the noises of sloshing water and his soft hiccups as Millie coos softly to him.

She had never thought that she would be a mother. Millie was ready for her family line to die with her―unless she met someone special―and leave her inheritance towards some charity like a good samaritan.

Ironic how life seemed to play with people.

Pulling Tom out of the basin and tipping it over so it would drain in the bathtub, she methodically dries off the baby in her arms, his little sputters and waving hands oddly endearing. Big brown eyes blink up at her widely, and Millie chuckles.

"Let's go to bed, Tom."


	4. All at Sea or All at Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I am here; and here is nowhere in particular."
> 
> —William Golding

" _Where do we go when we die?"_

_The sky was overcast today, a typical English gray that settled over Little Hangleton like a familiar old friend. Rain was sure to come soon, but weather was a fickle thing sometimes, almost as fickle as father's infamous moods._

_Edith paused, pale blue eyes turning to the woman sitting on the end of the pew, gazing out of the stained windows with an almost lost look on her face. She was not a pretty girl, nor would she ever be considered average, not with her eyes. The features to be attractive were there, but overshadowed by her lank hair and sallow skin. It was almost pitiful, but God had his ways and had given the girl a heart more kind than most._

" _Well, Heaven of course, if you're good at least." She folded the linens, patting down the stack as another Sister passed by. The church was empty today, Father was off to Canterbury to visit his own family relations after the Christmas hols._

" _What if you don't go to Heaven?" Merope asked. Edith's pale brows rise at the question._

" _Then you go to Purgatory. Or Hell. It matters what kind of person you are, Merope."_

_Strabismus eyes flickered to her, looking awfully sad in that moment._

" _I see."_

* * *

_Honeyed-dew was the hardest thing she had to find, because she wasn't quite sure on what it was. Would it be dew with just honey on it? Or dew that came from honey? These were questions that would've been easily answered if she was allowed to go to Hogwarts. Unfortunately, father would never allow that._

_She ran a stressed hand through her hair, straightening from her hunched pose to look at the closely packed trees around her. Morfin wouldn't be happy with her running off again, but with father taking out his frustrations on her brother, she was free to escape how she pleased. Granted she was quiet when sneaking back into their shack of a home._

_Father had been increasingly paranoid lately, hexing any poor sod who dared to come close to their little shack of a home. The town's children had made it a game to try and knock on their door and scramble away before the inhabitants opened the door, prompting Morfin to nail a live snake on their front. It had made her wince every time she caught sight of the poor creature, lured by the instinctual trust they had for Speakers, only to be used as a scare tactic._

_Unhappy with Morfin's actions (it had earned her brother a beating), father had placed a ward on their door to keep away Muggles. She had spent a whole afternoon watching the children run up their dirt path to suddenly turn away shrieking right before their poised-to-knock fists touched the door._

_It was a clever piece of ward-work that Merope longed to be capable of. She was a witch, yet could barely speak to life any spell. Father had found it a shameful thing, taking it upon himself to beat the magic into her any way he could._

_What magic she could perform was pitiful, even her wand barely responded to her, sputtering weakly as she waved it and incanted. Of course she wouldn't be able to get a new one, wands were expensive and father wouldn't even deign to gift her something that was worth more than a knut._

_Her wand was old, passed down through generations and held by an ancestor who actually attended Hogwarts, which honestly, prompted her to hold onto the old thing even if she was little more than a Squib. Finola Gaunt had actually attended the school she only dreamed of going to, and once, a much younger Merope had dreamed of a girl who bloomed under Hogwart's care, going from a weak witch to someone who could be praised much like Morgana._

_In her mind, Finola had been this girl. Someone like Merope (because why else would her wand out of all her ancestors' react to her?) who had weak magic. Perhaps Finola would've been a Ravenclaw, curious of the world and magic just like she was; her name sounded smart and proper. Besides, she had enough around those who proclaimed themselves as true Slytherins._

* * *

" _A waste of a witch! A stain upon my House!" Father screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. Bloodshot eyes swung wildly around the room, a thin hand clamping down on a section of her lank hair, pulling until she cried. "Shut up! Shut up you miserable little wretch!"_

" _Please father! I meant no harm—" She cried, eyes screwing shut in pain, her hands curling around her head as if it would protect her from him. It never did._

" _Harm!? You think you could harm me!? Lord Marvolo Gaunt of House Gaunt, direct descendant of to the great Salazar Slytherin!?" He yanked his hand back, pulling her to the dirty floorboards with a loud bang that had Morfin scurrying into the room, glee written upon his thin face at the scene before him. "I'll show you harm, girl, I'll show you!"_

_He let go of her, tossing her to the floorboards as she blinked wide, watery eyes at him, her arms warily uncurling from over her head. Morfin stood in the doorway, his eyes flickering between their father and her, heaving excitedly, wood creaking beneath him as he practically vibrated in anticipation._

_Marvolo grinned, watching her blanch as he pulled his wand from his sleeve, his eyes gleaming wickedly at the ominous, sickly yellow light that lit up his wand and canted the shadows over his face to be more severe. He looked like a dark villain in a story. "Diffracto."_

_A crunch._

_She screamed, her head flinging back in pain as she instinctively shied away from him, tears running down her dirty face. Her legs kicked wildly, like an animal trying to escape as Marvolo stalked forward. Morfin's laughter echoed in the background, a perverted song to her begging shrieks. "Please, please! Stop! No, no, no—"_

" _Shut up! Shut your mouth!"_

_His hand lashed forward, clamping down on the broken bone of her arm as pain swept through her, another scream erupting from her lips. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry, father!"_

* * *

Millie shot up, bile rising in the back of her throat as her heart beat wildly in her chest. Her hands were clammy, clenched into the sheets and she lurched forward as nausea panged in her stomach, curling over her legs as she tried to calm down.

Her eyes rolled around the room wildly, taking in her surroundings while her mind gave her images she had never once been to. The room was dark, and despite the feeling of being overstimulated, Elmora's was silent. Like a drum, her heart beat wildly, echoing in her own ears as she shifted, the rush of blood to her head having her feel like she would actually heave.

Millie exhaled, forcing herself to relax as she fell back on her hard mattress, cool air sweeping up her legs from the exposed part of her blanket she had kicked off presumably in her fitful , she settled her hands over her stomach, trying to clear her mind as she stared up at the blank ceiling that seemed to stare right back at her, prompting her to unwillingly try to decipher what just happened.

Odd dreams were an old friend to Millie. She had grown up with dreams she held a certain degree of lucidity over, able to wake up when she wanted to. While things may have felt real in her dream, there was always a niggling feeling _while_ she dreamed that she wasn't in reality.

 _That_ , whatever that was, was not normal. She had never felt like a passenger in her own mind.

The springs creaked as she shifted to her side, pulling the blanket to her chin in an effort to feel more anchored and safe much like a child finding comfort in the imaginary thought of monsters being repelled by the thin barrier of a blanket. The cotton was scratchy under her chin and her nightgown uncomfortably balled up under her hip, but Millie couldn't find it in herself to move.

Tom slept on, oblivious to her mental turmoil, his crib undisturbed and bathed in a fair glow of ivory moonlight that pulled her tremulous mind to a close. _This_ was reality, with Tom's soft breaths across the room and the settling of Elmora's as it too, slumbered.

Millie had never put much stock into dreams. They were things given and little study was done on them to explain exactly _what_ they were. She was sure that whatever studies done in nineteen-twenty-seven wouldn't trump the studies in nineteen-sixty-two.

They were too real, _(memories)_ pulling familiarity in places and things she found herself yearning for. Sister Edith's face was printed sharply in the forefront of her mind, fondness welling up for someone who she was sure she had never seen in her life. The only Edith she knew was Edith Helstein, a girl from her own _primary_ class for Christ's sake.

And...and then there was _that_ again. She knew Merope's family were the bad sort, she knew they were ugly and wrong, cruel when they didn't need to be and strange things happened around the shack they called home.

_There's magic here, Millie._

She squeezed her eyes shut, willing her conscience to silence itself. Millie was a woman of science, of logic and reason with proper evidence to be found. Not...not something fictitious and out of a children's storybook.

But by George, the images, the _memories_ swirling in her head that weren't hers had too much to ignore. Cauldrons, wands, magical lights, speaking to snakes, _The Leaky Cauldron._ They were there, with the last being a memory of her own, the man's action of lighting up the end of his wand a brilliant example.

But, if Merope, by these...magical standards was a witch, where was her wand?

* * *

"You're looking well in it." A voice pipes up, sliding a glass over the bar counter. The barmaid winks, brown eyes friendly. "Don't worry about this one love, notice you counting your coppers outside. Heard it's been a bit tight for the Muggleborns lately, no offense."

Millie didn't know what was offensive in that, other than the mention of money. Her mum used to lecture her on polite company, never speaking about money at the dinner table (along with politics), but she was in a pub and most social conventions went sideways in one.

"I'm Pureblood," she blurts, almost blinking at the mechanical way it slipped from her lips. Marvolo and Morfin had screamed about their blood being pure and Millie thinks that it's something wizardfolk take stock in. Whatever having pure blood was about.

The bar-wench only blinks, not missing a beat as she nods. "You like to order anything? I can give a discount, how much you got on you?"

"Twelve quid." Millie replies. It's _all_ she's got and rent is becoming increasingly stressful to even think about. If she can't find a job by the end of the week she is sucking up her pride and taking work at the factories on the outskirts of London, no matter how grueling it is.

"Quid?" The barmaid asks quizzically. "Oh! Muggle money.'Aught to get that exchanged with the goblins, heard it's gone up."

What.

"Goblins?"

The other woman nods, turning around to bustle behind the counter, pulling a tap and snapping her fingers as a tray levitates itself towards her. "Y'ever use Gringotts? I know some families don't with the connection to the Goblin Wars and all, but they're really useful creatures. Quite rude though."

What.

Millie is barely even coming into the idea that magic exists but a bank run by _goblins?_ What was next, sanctuaries for dragons? Merlin being _real_? That would mean there was a whole other world in the one she has been living her whole life and she knows she's in the same world because if she bloody well wasn't on Earth then were else was she that had a London mirroring the one in her own time, give or take a few things that would naturally change with time?

"Right." Is all she says, trying not to cringe at the look the barmaid throws her. It's nice that she is trying to be polite, but Millie truly can't comprehend anything else if she keeps talking to this woman who is obviously magical and knows more than her—without blasting her own head off.

But the mention of an exchange rate has her curious. Magicals having their own minted money means that they are a separate entity from the Commonwealth, despite living in the Commonwealth. A nation within a nation, if you will.

It's a startling realization that if she can exchange her measly twelve quid for a bit more than she could get by on other things. Stretching money wouldn't be as hard and maybe if she could get her hands on a wand then maybe she could find work in the magical world. Her looks caught her less attention here than with normalfolk, so maybe there was hope. No harm looking in two different places.

"And...how do I get to Gringotts?" Millie asked, feeling quite like a child as the barmaid gives her a strange look.

"First time to Diagon?" She asks, humming as Millie nods because wherever Diagon was then Gringotts was. "Finish up that drink and I'll open the way."

So Millie downs the sweet-tasting drink she remembers as Butterbeer, it's syrupy flavor lingering in her mouth as the barmaid ("'m Alla. Alla Fawcett. Been running the Leaky for five years now.") taps on a brick wall with her wand, lecturing Millie to pay attention to the pattern. She does, but it doesn't stop the pattern from falling away from memory as the bricks wondrously move to reveal a bustling street.

Robes and hats of all colors burst into view, just as bright as the displays and tottering buildings that boasted displays of all sorts of outlandish and normal things. Owls swooped overhead, a few even riding on the shoulders of their owners!

She's too enthralled with the scenery to properly bid Alla good-bye, the wall building itself back up behind her and forcing her to take a step out into the busy cobbled road. Conversations of things and people floated past her ears, accents of all-over the United Kingdom making itself home in the alley, bright and colorful as the place itself.

It was... _magical_.

She found herself in wonder as she looked and passed upon shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange tools that glittered enchantingly in their display cases, precariously piled spellbooks, quills, and windows stacked with barrels of both ugly and interesting things that wiggled inside.

Shops boasted the number of years they were in business, one even dating back to _nine hundred-forty-three B.C._! There was so much evidence here, a world that had continued on without the rest even being aware of its existence that Millie was forced to _believe._

A whole world, hidden in plain sight, right in the heart of London. If it wasn't right in front of her, Millie would barely believe in it. Excitement welled up in her, her hands clasping together and squeezing tightly lest she start squealing like some mad woman.

Magic! It was real and here and there were others who had Merope's ability.

Exhaling, she stepped out into the crowd, easily finding the rhythm with the footraffic who seamlessly move between the lines of vendors and peddlers that took up the main street. Everywhere she turned, Millie couldn't help but be amazed at products of sale, one vendor waving what looked to be a string of floating cloud-like puffs.

"Pardon me." A hand steadies her as she smacks into someone, embarrassment welling up in her as she catches sight of robes that look to be worth more than anything Millie could hope to achieve in this life.

"My apologies," Millie exhales, catching sight of a rather wand-like shape in the inner folds of the stranger's robes. "I wasn't watching my steps."

Gray eyes catch hers and Millie _freezes._ The man in front of her is handsome, enviously so, and Millie has never felt more ugly than in the moment she had woken up in Merope's body to find what average beauty she possessed to be gone. Dark hair curls over his ears, tied back in a manner that Millie would assume only noble lords in the Victorian era would do. A neatly trimmed beard frames perfect lips with the most perfect cupid's bow she has seen on a person.

His hand releases her as if burned, gray eyes turning flinty as he catches sight of her face. His lip curls, gray eyes sweeping over her person in a manner that has her wanting to curl up and hide herself in a potato sack. "Mudblood. Watch where you are going."

The handsome stranger sweeps past her then, leaving Millie feeling ugly and insulted by an unfamiliar word. By the way he threw it at her, she was sure that it had to be some sort of magical insult. It only takes a few moments before fractured pride becomes incensed and she is looking over the crowd with fiery eyes to see if she could catch sight of the foul-mouthed man.

Unfortunately she doesn't see him, but she does spot a snowy-white building that towers over the other buildings in the alley, imposing over the little shops in it's shiny marble build as the crowd splits in two. _Gringotts Bank_ is stamped into the stone overhead, the columns of the bank leaning more to one side or the other. Millie sincerely doubted that the leaning figure of the columns was an intentional effect by the architect of the building.

It looks like any other bank in the more posh areas of London, and Millie finds herself relieved by this fact. The image of goblins lurk in her mind, Alla Fawcett's offhand comment of Goblin Wars having her hesitant.

It wasn't as if anyone would give the goblins their _life savings_ or freedom to run what was probably the Wizarding World's main bank, if they weren't trustworth, right?

With squared shoulders, she hurried over to the marble building, skipping up the steps quickly at one of short guards stationed in the front inquisitive glance. The bronze doors were propped wide open, and as she stepped into the building. The small entrance hall also had it's doors propped open, flanked by short guards who's armor matched the ones outside.

Beyond the small entrance hall, Millie tried not to gape at the opulently decorated marble hall, tall desks manned by ugly creatures with long noses flanking the walls. Multiple crystal chandeliers hung at the junction of the vaulted ceiling, candles flickering at the end, rainbows of light winking and dancing in candlelight. A large crest stretched across the marble floor, embossed proudly in browns and golds. Millie could barely make out what the crest was from this angle, or what it said.

Many men and women dotted the hall, clothes ranging from fancy robes to shabby coats she associated with the world outside of Diagon Alley. The lines at each...goblin teller ranged from no-one to a line that curled around the lobby.

Hesitantly eyeing one of the tellers and then the line, she made her way to one of the goblins with nobody in front of them. Pausing at the end of a rather wrinkly goblin with glasses perched on a beak-like nose, she waited for them to notice her, anxiety mounting in her breast as the goblin looked over her and continued to punch numbers into the rather archaic calculator on hand.

"Excuse me?" Millie shifted, her hands coming in front of her to rest over her stomach for a modicum of comfort. Honestly, talking to _goblins_. This felt like some sort of children's story she was dreaming up.

The goblin teller continued on, a thin tongue peeking out from its mouth to reveal shark-like teeth as it wetted its cracked lips.

She cleared her throat, angling herself so her voice would carry up the rather tall desk. "Excuse me?"

The goblin paused, beady eyes flickering down to her curiously before turning back to its calculator. The creature sighed as she shifted unsurely below, claw-like nails curling over the edge of the desk as it looked over. "Is there something you need, human?"

Heart hammering in her chest—an actual goblin was conversing with her!—Millie tried to frazzle her nerves and appear calm as she made eye-contact with the fantastical creature. "I have an inquiry on opening an account, as well as converting my money."

A bushy white brow raises, catching onto the questioning tone in her voice at the end of her sentence before giving a grand sigh, as if her very person was inconveniencing her. If it wasn't for feeling very lost, Millie would've felt slighted _, but with the shock of goblins being tellers and having their own bank_ , she instead just felt very unsure.

The goblin leaned over, snatching some papers from the corner of its desk before looking down it's beak-nose at her. "Name, blood status, age, date of birth, and marital status. If possible please give the name of the House you belong to." The goblin intoned, looking rather bored as it waited for her answers.

"Mil-Merope Mara Gaunt Riddle, uh, Pureblood, tw-nineteen," she stumbled over her own facts and Merope's ignoring the curious look the goblin shot her as its quill scribbled over the paper. "May twelfth, nineteen-oh-seven, and I am currently in the process of divorce."

The quill paused, the goblin leaning over the end of the desk to glare at her unhappily. "Was this marriage recognized by the Muggle or Magical Ministries?"

Millie blinked, because _wow_ , she should've expected that this world had their own government if they were hidden from normal people. "Um. Muggle? I think?"

The goblin huffed. "Merope Mara Gaunt of House Gaunt, cadet branch of House Slytherin, I presume?"

At his look she gave him a weak smile, his words sounded right but Millie wasn't even sure about half of the things he even said. House Gaunt? House Slytherin? Merope didn't seem to be some sort of magical noble. What odd flashes she had seen or knew of Merope was that of living in a shanty shack

So sounding more confident than she felt, she nodded. "Yes."

"Due to your marriage being recognized by the Muggle Ministry, you are considered single by the Magical Ministry. If you wish to have news of your...marital status updated, I can send a document to the Ministry." The goblin's lip curled.

"No." She shook her head, something like relief washing over her. There would be no worry about getting a divorce recognized in this world as well, and if Tom was like Merope, she would assume being under a noble house in the magical world would be better, just like it was in the normal world. "No, I would like to be recognized as single."

Waving a hand, the goblin procured a new sheet, his quill wiggling as he scribbled on the paper. With a huff, the goblin leaned back, turning behind him to raise a hand and call over a runner in a bark that sounded more like boulders crashing upon each other.

The goblin turned back to her. "Miss Gaunt. If you would please make your way to the doors at the end of the hall, you will be escorted to an Account Manager."

Mille bowed, "Thank you."

The goblin sneered, pointy teeth gleaming. Millie decided that along with the anxiety brimming in her breast, she did not like the feeling of the goblin's beady little eyes glaring into her as she left.

* * *

"Merope Gaunt." The goblin greeted, its nails considerably shorter than the goblin teller. It's skin leaned more into a pale-sallow shade than the peachy-pale she had seen on most goblins, giving this one a more creature-like look. It's hair was thin, scraggly pieces frizzing outwards.

Millie gave a weak smile, settling into the rather plush chair awkwardly. The office was as splendant as the lobby, a fireplace even taking up a mantle behind the goblin's straight-backed chair. Crossed swords hung above the mantle along with an inscription on a golden plate she couldn't make out without squinting hard enough.

"I am Urglank the Five-Handed and from this moment on, I will be your Account Manager." The goblin—Urglank—informed, folding gnarled hands on the desk. "I will be blunt, Lady Gaunt, as the only member of your house to enter Gringotts in the last three-hundred and twenty-three years, your position as a customer is precarious."

"I see," Millie said, not really understanding."What would this mean for my business with Gringotts?"

Urglank shuffled out a few papers, creating a rather worryingly stack that had her eyeing the amount of papers. It reminded her of the summer homework handed out when she attended Headington's, several packets that numbered around two-hundred pages each along with some random literature paired with an extra packet. How she had hated it, thumbing through each paper until everything was finished only for the teachers to skim through the packets to see if it was complete before handing out grades. What was the point of giving so much work if they didn't follow through with going over it properly? Though, Millie doubted that the goblins would be anything like her old school teachers. The creatures seemed to be rather thorough.

"House Gaunt has been labelled as 'Discontinued' via Comhaltan Severnus Gaunt in sixteen-oh-four. While you may not be the head of your house, you can choose to continue service with Gringotts privately." He peered at her, eyeing her unsure face silently. He takes her silence to go on, "This would mean that your Head of House may not access your savings, but this would also mean that you will not receive the full benefits as one may if they were connected with their House's account."

"My...House's account?"

The goblin nodded, shuffling through some papers laid on the side before sliding it towards her. She took them hesitantly, the fine print dizzying her brain before it began to settle on the elegant calligraphy. It looked rather medieval, if she was to be honest.

"As a cadet branch of House Slytherin along with being related to the honored House Peverell, you are entitled to receive a vault with rather...extensive security. I assume you are an independent?" Urglank leaned forward, clawed fingers curling over each other as he looked at her in expectation.

Millie nodded, suddenly relieved at the familiarity of at least one part of all this. "Yes. I am an independent with a dependent."

"A dependent?" Urglank asked.

"My son. He is less than a year." She supplied.

The goblin nodded. "I assume since you are put down as 'Single'," he tapped a piece of paper in front of him, "That the sire is no longer involved with yourself or your offspring?"

"I am recognized as unmarried by wizarding standards, but yes." And wasn't that a relief? Filing for divorce in the normal world was expensive by itself, but Millie could barely imagine how wizarding currency worked. She had caught a glance of _gold_ coins being deposited by another customer and had boggled at the metal before she was ushered to Urglank's office.

"I...see. Please be seated for just a moment, Miss Gaunt." The goblin hopped from his chair, turning to the door and shutting it quietly behind him. Anxiety crept up her throat, and she suddenly felt it hard to breathe. Had she done something wrong? What if they would reject her service?

Before she could start spiraling, Urglank returned, glancing at her nervous form before sniffing loftily. Another goblin came in after him, this one a few smidges taller than Urglank, but just as peculiar looking. A pair of spectacles sat on the creature's long nose, golden chains framing the sides of his wrinkly visage.

"Miss Gaunt," The new goblin greeted. "I am Manager Grimclaw."

She inclined her head, trying not to vibrate at the frazzling thoughts that once again spear-headed it's way through. "A pleasure, Manager Grimclaw."

"Urglank has informed me that you are an independent with offspring." Grimclaw said, eyeing her speculatively. "This opens up a rather interesting clause laid by Spurius Slytherin in thirteen-seventy."

Grimclaw padded around the desk, pulling a set of papers from a bag that should not have been able to hold the sheaf of papers without folding in some way, but with all of the strange and wondrous things she had seen since stepping into The Leaky Cauldron, she was wiser than to say anything. Magic.

The papers were a bit yellowed and upon a closer look, were actually parchment. A looping script made its way across the parchment, signed proudly in silver ink at random intervals.

"Stated by Spurius Slytherin, Head of House Slytherin in thirteen-seventy to fourteen-eightynine: Unwed or widowed mothers of House Slytherin and direct branches," Grimclaw gave her a significant look over the curling parchment, "shall be provided for with a lump sum of two-hundred galleons every midwinter until remarriage."

Millie blinked. "And this was in thirteen-seventy?" Men of that time were considerably less tolerant than the nineteen-hundreds. This Spurius Slytherin was rather progressive in his views.

The goblin raised a brow. "Yes. It has since passed the proper date of midwinter, as such we would provide the sum at the earliest convenience." He spread his clawed hands, "But because of your action to become a customer of Gringotts, you may receive the lump sum after you receive your vault."

"You will just need to sign through a few documents, Miss Gaunt." Urglank spoke up, both Millie and Grimclaw turning to look at him.

"I-Of course." Millie blinked quickly, feeling rather whiplashed at the sudden turn of events. Two-hundred galleons? How much would that translate over to normal pounds?

Grimclaw took his leave, promising to deliver the galleons as soon as possible. She bid a rather faint farewell to the other goblin as Urglank passed over paper and paper, tapping his gnarled fingers at empty lines for her to sign her name over. It was rather tricky with a quill, but adjusted after the first ten of signing ' _Merope Mara Gaunt_ ' in clumsy cursive. The first three times she had almost written her own name, but had passed off her 'i' as 'e'.

"And finally," Urglank pushed another piece of paper at her. A rather fancy crest was stamped into this one near one corner. A steadier hand had written on the bottom in print. "By signing this you declare yourself to Gringotts as a customer and agree with our security preventatives given by priority of customer. Due to Grimclaw's position as House Slytherin's Manager, both myself and Grimclaw will be your chief advisors and associates as long as you continue to do business with Gringotts."

"I thought House Slytherin was extinct?" Millie asks, her tumbling mind pushing forward a rather hazed memory of one Marvolo Gaunt informing a young Merope of being the last true descendants. The hand holding the quill clenched it tighter and Urglank blinked at her as if she was slow.

"Goblins do not consider a House's status as 'extinct' until formal disbandment. Now, Miss Gaunt, please sign this and we shall carry on with security measures for your vault."

Millie signed, feeling as if she had agreed to something with the devil with the way Urglank snatched the paper from in front of her the moment her quill pulled away from signing Merope's last name. His beady eyes scanned the form, smiling at her with unnervingly shark-like teeth.

"I will return in a few moments to process these." Urglank informed her, hopping off his chair and scurrying out of the door once again.

God. What was she doing? She had barely read half of the papers the creature had set in front of her, too self-conscious at the rather expectant gaze the goblin stared at her with. Every question she had asked so far had made her feel stupid with the way they eyed her and if there was one thing that made her as ill at ease like a moody teenager, it was feeling like an idiot. She should've read each and every line. What if she agreed to something without knowing? The thought made her feel sick. She had enough to worry about with payment for rent looming over her like a rather scary shadow she couldn't get rid of, along with Tom.

Millie didn't realize she was shaking until Urglank hopped back up into his chair, peering at her with his dark eyes before slapping a smaller stack of papers in front of her. "Please review these and fill out which security measures are most... _agreeable_ with you, Miss Gaunt."

Staring at the creature for a moment, she did as told, pulling the stack closer. These papers were written by typewriter, the printed letters staring back at her in bold ink.

She read over the list, her stomach swooping as she took in the word ' _Dragon'_ , sitting next to a rather innocuous check box. Picking up the quill provided by Urglank, she began to check over the empty boxes, her eyes straying up to ' _Dragon'_ every other moment in disbelief. That _had_ to be a codeword for something.

"May I ask a few questions on some of these terms?" Millie asked hesitantly. Urglank nodded, leaning over the wide desk as she pointed and repeated a few of the terms rather incredulously. Anxiety reared its head as she received rather disbelieving looks, but ignored them.

Finally she had the boxes checked out to her tastes, passing the paper back to the goblin as he swiftly looked over the paper.

_CUSTOMER Merope Mara Gaunt HAS AGREED TO THE FOLLOWING PROTECTIONS ON THEIR VAULT._

_PROTECTIVE MEASURES AGAINST THIEVES:_

_Wand Screening_

_Enchantment Screening_

_Blood Screening_

_Thief's Downfall_

_PROTECTIVE MEASURES AGAINST NON-HOLDERS of THE VAULT:_

_Self-Locking_

_Cedonil Charm_

_PROTECTIVE WARDS PLACED OVER the VAULT:_

_Meideis Signatura Boundary_

_Circumspicio Charm_

_Fervefacio Charm_

"The full payment of these protections being placed will require your wand along with a sample of your own blood and a payment of one-hundred-seventy-nine galleons. Maintenance of these protections will be done every five years and will cost a payment of one-hundred galleons."

Millie's lips twitched downwards. She would have only twenty-one galleons (however much that was) left over from the lump sum. Still. She wasn't sure how magical thieves worked and what kind of tricks they had, so it was better to be safe than sorry.

"That sounds agreeable, yes." Millie responded.

Urglank nodded, a slow smile spreading over his face. "It has been a pleasure to do business with you Miss Gaunt."

Millie awkwardly smiled back, her hands fidgeting in her lap. "Thank you, Urglank. It was a pleasure to meet you."

* * *

After her admission to Urglank that she did not possess a wand after he had asked for it to key to her vault, the goblin had given her such a shocked look that would make one think she had told him that she was a seven-foot purple giraffe with wings. The goblin, ever professional, had continued on with business before giving her simple leather coin purse with the left-over galleons from the lump sum.

Urglank had then given her a quick rundown on wizarding currency when he saw her squinting at the coins.

He must've thought her to be the daftest wizard-witch?-to ever be, but after giving a sample of her blood he had quickly ushered her out of his office and had pointed her to where the resident wand-maker was.

The shop was narrow and shabby, squeezed between two shops as if it was simply built to get rid of an unwanted alley between the buildings. Maybe it was. Millie wasn't sure, wizarding architecture had so far proved to be both wonky and spectacular.

Ollivander's was less than she had expected from Urglank's words. He had informed her after another tentative question that, yes, Ollivander's was the shop name and, yes, they made the best wands in Wizarding Britain. The paint on the front was peeling and the windows were dark and dusty. It didn't seem to be as great as Urglank had said.

A bell chimed above when she pushed the door open. It was tiny and dusty, brown wood turning into a light gray on the top of the desk which separated where customers and employees would stand. Behind the desk were thin shelves that reached the ceiling, filled with countless boxes with no order. A single chair sat empty behind a silver register.

"Hello?" Millie called, shifting to peer around one of the tall shelves. The shop was lit only by the natural light outside, the ends of the shelves darker in the back.

"Hello…?" She called again. Unease settled in her gut and she wondered if perhaps she came while it was a lunch-break. Hopefully not. She had to return to Elmora's soon before Dorothy left to see the father of her children, the woman had agreed to watch him and Millie was honestly thankful to have someone as accommodating as her around.

Huffing, Millie turned to look over her shoulder and out to the busy street outside. Unlike other shops, Ollivander's didn't have anything that sat in their windows. Perhaps their reputation had left the owners to forgo maintenance, as they would still receive customers.

Turning back around to the desk, she almost shrieked at the old man behind it. Her heart beat wildly in her chest and her right hand had flown up to clutch her the fabric over it.

"Oh my goodness," Millie breathed. "You startled me."

The old man narrowed his pale eyes at her, his hunched figure curling over his thrawn hands. "And who might you be?"

Millie took a half-step back. There was something off. "I-I am Merope Gaunt."

He squinted at her, humming. "If you say so."

"Excuse me?"

"I assume you are here for a wand then. Which hand?" The old man prompted, looking up at her curiously.

Reeling, Millie bit her lip. "Is there a...preference?"

"Your dominant hand, miss."

Cautiously, she extended her right arm, startling as a tape-measure flew out from the old man's sleeves like a whip, curling over different sections and parts of her arm as he hummed. Wizened eyes raked over her form before pulling her firmly closer to the desk by her outstretched arm until her knees clacked against the wood.

The hairs on the nape of her neck stood up and Millie wondered if this was how prey felt when face-to-face with a predator. Not that he could do anything to her without Millie fighting back, but the _energy_ the man seemed to exude...it made her shiver.

"Hmm. Yes. Yes, I think that it would match splendidly," the old man muttered, glancing up at her with pale eyes under a frazzle of white hair. "The last Gaunt I served was Alexander Gaunt back in eighteen-thirty-five. Fourteen inches, alder, with a kneazle whisker. A brittle wand, if you ask me."

The old man turned to the dusty shelves before she could respond, his hunched figure forming into the shadows in the corner of the store. There was the rustling of boxes and a loud sneeze followed by frustrated mumbling before he returned, an armful of skinny boxes in his clung to parts of his shirt.

"Try this one," He ordered, sliding forward a box. Millie slipped open the top, the wand inside clattering at the movement.

"Silver lime, twelve and three quarters. Bendy with a phoenix core." He eyed the wand almost hungrily. "Go on," he urged, "wave it."

Before she could, the wand was snatched from her hand, a shocked cry leaving her mouth as the man began madly muttering to himself. "No. No, that one wasn't right."

"This one." He shoves another box at her-a faded red color that makes the half-blown dust on top make the box look like it was made of velvet. She fumbles to catch it, opening the box and barely peering at the wand inside before that one too, is snatched from her hands.

"Sir," She says rather impatiently, because what is the point of handing her a wand if she wasn't going to use it? "Pardon if this is rude but-"

"Gerbold Ollivander is my name, Miss Gaunt. Now, you look to be an insecure sort." The old man, Gerbold, points out. Millie stills, staring at Gerbold in shock at his blunt words and the wizard chuckles. Her ears feel warm and something on the lines of embarrassment and shame well up in her. Before she can say anything, Gerbold gives out a loud exclamation.

"This one! I am sure of it. Crafted by Geranium Ollivander himself. A good pair, a very good pair for a witch such as yourself-I - yes, I rather think this would fit. Twelve and three quarters, willow and a vampire fang. Though you shouldn't mention your core, nasty business that is, can get you in trouble in some circles. Nice and pliable, it should serve you well."

A vampire fang? Millie wasn't sure if to be horrified that Dracula-esque creatures actually existed or to chuck the wand back into the dark shelves it came from. Despite her better judgement, she took the wand out of the box, a sudden thrum-not unlike the time she had curiously stuck a wire into the electric socket as a bratty child-of power buzzed through her arm, shaking her very bones. Startled, she dropped the wand, unheeding of Gerbold's angry hiss at the action before he quickly bent with a spryness she wouldn't have guessed of a man his age.

"-o respect for wands!" He shoved the wand back into her hand, a rather frustrated look on his wrinkled face. "Now swish!"

Mutely, she did as told, this time clutching the wand tighter in her hand at the zing of power that flooded into her hand and up her arm. There was a bang, smoke not a few feet from her face and sparks streaming in ribbons of gold and silver.

Gerbold beamed, practically preening as he turned to her. "Seven galleons for the tricky customer."

* * *

Tom is watching her as she polishes the wand with an old scrap of cloth. He is still as he lays on the bed, unswaddled. Dorothy had just woken him up from his nap a few hours before she returned home, her coin purse considerably more heavy with money transferred from galleons to pounds. Four galleons and the rest of the coins of wizarding currency was enough for rent in pounds.

She had paid her land-lady ahead of time for the next month as well, the woman looking at her suspiciously as she counted the notes. "You find a job?"

"No. I received some funds from a relative."

It would be news the next morning (gossip really, as most 'news' was in a house full of women), that she was from money of some sort, from the way Peggaline had eyed her coin purse when she passed the woman. She didn't know how to mind her own, whether it was food or business.

Whatever. What mattered was that she had secured this month's and next month's roof over her head. Wizarding money translated over to normal money in an exorbitant amount. Mental math had her struggling to calculate how much her wand was worth in pounds. Thirty-four.

"Look here, Tom." Millie spoke, her soft voice catching the infant's attention. He babbled at her, hands flopping clumsily in the air as his legs curled up. She swished her wand, sparks lighting up the dark room. Tom shrieked, breaking off to coo loudly.

Millie chuckled, setting down the wand on the rickety nightstand by her bed and stretching over the thin mattress to settle next to her son. He met her eyes with his own, wide and curious.

"Oh, Tom," she whispered, "I don't know what I'm doing."

Tom grinned, slapping a hand over her cheek with a loud ' _thwack.'_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is perhaps the longest chapter I have ever written for a multi-chaptered fic. So Millie has stepped into the wizarding world. More to come in the next chapter, of course, but I hope this 7.5k monstrosity can tide everyone over till then. I really enjoyed writing this chapter, despite some of the hiccups along the way. I will be exploring the 'House' system with the Wizarding World a bit more, because honestly, I feel like J.K. Rowling forwent the logic of cadet branches and the direct relative-ness of it all. Especially in a Pureblood society.
> 
> To my surprise, the birthday I had settled on matched the Celtic Calendar that J.K. Rowling used for a crutch of wand-wood lore, along with the wood I felt best encompassed both Millie and Merope. I gave a rather, unusual core that I do hope you don't see as Mary-Sue-ish, mainly for some fan-written lore on wand-cores. The wandmakers before Garrick Ollivander used more than the three cores he tended to use. To explain:
> 
> "Willow is an uncommon wand wood with healing power, and their ideal owner often has some (usually unwarranted) insecurity, however, well they may try and hide it. They have a handsome appearance and well-founded reputation for enabling advanced, non-verbal magic, the willow wands there have consistently selected those of greatest potential, rather than those who feel they have little to learn."
> 
> Millie is vain. She states that she isn't but refuses to look at a mirror or any reflective surface, not because the face is alien and different but because Merope is ugly. Millie was an attractive woman before she was displaced. Both Millie and Merope have insecurities I see both as warranted and unwarranted, with the latter for both being the insecurity in themselves. Millie is unsure of the world she has stepped into, but she doesn't need to be. She is adaptable and perceptive enough to pass off as a local witch. Merope is/was insecure of her own magical power in my eyes. An abusive situation of where you are told that you are worthless because of something you lack comes from this. Merope was a victim, but I do not deny she was also an abuser when it comes to Tom Riddle Sr. Seriously. In the end, Millie/Merope do have great potential. With Millie's insecurity and want to fit into somewhere that may be as alien as her (along with somewhere that may give her answers) along with Merope's insecurity of herself, I saw willow as the perfect wand wood.
> 
> Onto the wand core:
> 
> "Vampire fang wands like the Chimera Fragment wands are very rare and mostly heirloom wands. A vampire fang core is mostly handed down from previous owners of such wands. Vampire fangs are a very versatile wand core and can be either Dark or Light. The vampire fang has no certain divinity and will choose what it's owner chooses as it is a very loyal bond. This core works well with Charms, and Divinations. Often this wand is exceptional for potion stirring."
> 
> Please note that this is a fan-made description. Dragon/Phoenix/Unicorn wandcores were not chiefly used by Garrick's forefathers like he himself used them. There is more variety to pick from. Thus, with the neutralness of the wand-core along with the loyalty of the core I felt that this was best suited for Millie, with a hint of Merope in potion-making.
> 
> Now, I do hope my explanation hasn't bothered you and that you are all enjoying Merope as much as I enjoy writing it.
> 
> Until the next,  
> M.B. Westover


	5. Pushing Limits Prior to the Mundane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “We're all so multifaceted, and it's impossible to see all the sides at once.”  
> ― Suzanne Hayes

“That’ll be one galleon, eight sickles, and nine knuts.” The cashier drolled. They were obviously not in the mood to be at work, dropping over the counter like a sad flower. 

Millie fumbled with her coin purse, wincing as she counted out her coins. She had converted her normal money back into wizarding coins after spending a good fortnight on whether or not to splurge a little on magical books. She still wasn’t aware of _how_ much each coin was worth exactly, but she did know the difference between the three coins which was enough of a victory to herself. 

_Parchment Pressed Tomes_ was a very small bookstore squeezed between a dusty looking junk shop and second-hand clothier with _much_ better prices than _Flourish_ _and Blott’s_. Even without understanding magical currency, she knew that they were expensive when she spotted a rather thick tome listed for fourteen galleons. The prices being so low also had to do with that _Parchment Pressed Tomes_ was a second-hand bookshop. 

“Do you have change for two galleons?” Millie sheepishly asks, awkwardly half-smiling. She had converted her meager leftovers (when turned into wizarding currency, the discrepancy between the normal economy and the wizarding economy was just downright _shocking_ ) into five shiny galleons. 

The goblin teller had looked at her all knowing-like, grumbling before he demanded her wand. When he was told that no, her wand was not yet keyed into her vault, he then demanded a sample of her blood. 

She almost missed Urglank and Grimclaw at the teller goblin’s rude and lackadaisical handling of extracting blood. The small cut on the inside of her arm had been quickly patched over with some sort of sticking bandage. It was basically a magical band-aid.

Millie didn’t want to recall the... _ride_ to her vault ( _number five-hundred-thirteen!)_ because she frankly thought that the goblins had such a mechanism to bully their human customers. They didn’t seem all done for their wizarding neighbors. (Her stomach was _still_ doing loops.)

The cashier nodded—although not before sighing—swiping his hand on the counter at her coins before turning to flick his wand at her purchases, the books neatly floating to the awaiting wrap, the paper crinkling and folding to invisible hands.

Magic _had_ to have some sort of logical explanation. Gravity, force, _whatever_ . Millie had spent a good amount of hours puzzling over her wand, wondering what _was_ it about a piece of stick that was so special? Millie couldn’t do much but make sparks fizzle out of her wand, so here she was in Diagon Alley, trying to catch up and at least make some sort of _sense_ of things. 

Things did not float willy-nilly, magical stick or not. 

“Thank you for your purchase, have a nice day.”

Millie nodded, clumsily taking the change while trying to grab her stack of wrapped purchases to quickly move out of the way for the next customer. Tom, strapped onto her back in a sling was babbling quietly as she shouldered the door open. 

“Well Tom,” Millie said as she stepped into the street. It was less busy than the first time she had been in the alley. “Mummy has enough here to help the both of us for a bit.”

She detoured to the bank, quickly exchanging her leftover wizarding money for normal money, thankful for whatever economy the magical one had that made their coin worth so much more. She had enough to get by for at least the whole year if she stretched it, maybe a little less. It was fine though, because Millie didn’t intend on being unemployed for long. 

Millie _had_ considered looking for a job among the shops in Diagon Alley, but had firmly hesitated in it. She could recall the barkeep from the Leaky Cauldron mentioning something about a magical school and wasn't sure if her normal education would substitute well enough. Not to mention, with the amount of _dates_ she had noticed on establishments and by overhearing a rather loud pair of gossiping women, magicalfolk seemed to put a big emphasis on how long who or what had been around.

Besides, she _was_ perceptive enough to figure out how things were done, but working in the magical world would be a last resort. 

Nodding to Alla Fawcett as she passes through the Leaky Cauldron—dubbed the Gateway by a few of its patrons for being the literal door to the wizarding world—Millie steps back out into foggy ol’ London with a sigh. 

The clouds were looking particularly heavy and so she hurried back to Elmora’s before the chance of rain could even start. There was no need to get her purchases wet before she could even use them. Magical books or not, there was no need to risk getting them wet. 

“Pardon me,” a passerby said, tipping his hat in a show of manners she was not quite used to from the nineteen-twenties. He had almost knocked her bag from her hands in his haste. 

“Don’t worry about it.” Millie gave him an awkward smile, his eyes meeting her own before grimacing. Of course. Reality was that Merope wasn’t pleasing on the eyes to look at; a fact that grated on Millie every day she saw a reminder of her new body’s ugliness etched in the eyes of another.

Stiffly, the man nodded to her, his eyes flicking to baby Tom in his sling before turning to vanish off into the crowd. Exhaling shortly, she continued on her way, careful to mind the potholes that littered the pavement to give the babe on her back the smoothest ride she could.

If she was to participate in the magical world (as much as having a foot emerged into it) she would at least know some basics. There was no reason to run around and make herself feel like an idiot. If there was anything else Millie hated besides the face she now wore, it had to be ignorance. 

Besides, if Tom ended up with whatever magic Merope had, she would be best pressed to be prepared. 

Quickly unlatching the gate to the garden of Elmora’s, Millie quickly crossed the stone pathway, eyeing a few sad-looking flowers on the edges of the grass. Hopefully the incoming rain wouldn’t drown them. The garden was rather plain. 

Fumbling with the bags in her hand to reach for her key, she unlocks the house’s front door, stepping in with a relieved breath as warm air from the hearth, no doubt burning in the parlor, washes over her cold face. She hadn’t realized how chilly London was today.

Tom babbles, presumably noticing the change in temperature as well. He was well-bundled up this morning, Millie fretting over the chill in her own room when she woke up and not wanting to risk Tom catching a cold. She wouldn’t know how to cope with a sick baby when medicine was behind about forty years. 

“Oh! Merope!” Dorothy is smiling around the corner, an unfamiliar face peering over her shoulder. Her son, Dennis, is nowhere to be seen. 

“Dorothy.” She greets with an incline of her head, wiping off whatever muck from the streets onto the front rug below her. With horses still being a popular method of transport, the roads were dirtier and stinkier than she could ever imagine. 

“I was just telling Theresa here about you and Tom,” Dorothy turns back to the new woman, Theresa, with a genial smile. “Merope here has the cutest little boy you will ever see! Like a little doe he is, such large eyes.”

Theresa smiles at Dorothy, but Millie doesn’t miss the dubious look given her way. It doesn’t stop her from inwardly bristling, despite the fact that she is aware that Merope is quite ugly and Tom was blessed to not have inherited the looks on the Gaunt side. 

“Theresa Catterton.” The woman plainly greets. She makes no move to extend her hand to shake so Millie gives her a tight smile. She can already tell what the woman is thinking other by the falsely polite look she is given. 

“Merope Gaunt.”

Dorothy beams, giving a promise to leave some biscuits out for her before linking arms with Theresa and ushering them both down the hall they came. Giggles follow, drawing a tired sigh from Millie before she squares her shoulders. Hefting everything up the stairs would be a task, but Millie didn’t dare to leave her purchases by themselves to put Tom in his crib. There were too many snoops in Elmora’s and she didn’t need the whispers of her being a freak along with being known as the ugliest woman in residence. 

Carrying her purchases up the stairs isn’t as hard as she thinks it is, the heavy weight of the books only becoming noticeable as she makes it halfway up the narrowly-built staircase. The planks laid out as steps were small and the hall encasing the stairs was much too narrow. In all, the stairs were the most dreaded feature of Elmora’s. It was a wonder that no one had yet taken a hard tumble down them.

Tom babbles from his sling and she hums. “Yes, I know.”

Even if there was no subject to conversation, it was a relief to be able to speak freely to someone, even if that someone was a baby with no true awareness to what she was saying. 

She bumps her door open with her hip, the weak hinges easily giving way. Normally, while this would concern Millie, her next-door neighbor in the room over was a terrible tattle and gossip-monger. If anyone had even _toed_ the line into her room, she was sure that her neighbor would have no problem saying _who_ did it, _why_ they did it, and _when_. 

Setting down the bags with a huff, she carefully cradles a hand under Tom to unwrap him in the sling she has him in. His baby blues have darkened to dark brown and he blinks up at her with doe-like eyes. 

“What a handsome boy you are,” Millie comments, a small smile lighting up her face at Tom’s responding gurgle. “I’m sure you’re hungry, we’ve had quite a busy day, haven’t we?”

Tom’s hand flails, lips pinching to stick his tongue out. The wispy strands of dark hair on his head flops back as she supports his neck before he could throw it back and hurt himself. Most of her apprehension of holding and handling Tom had faded since Wool’s Orphanage. A lot of the women in Elmora’s had mentioned something along the lines of a ‘mother’s touch,’ where as long as you were mindful of how fragile babies were, it was not impossible to manhandle them when needed. 

She groans as she sits on the bed, the box springs creaking as she fumbles to kick off her shoes with her feet. Tom babbles, held in her arms as she then pushes herself to lean against the wall of the room. The coolness of the wall is a balm to her surprisingly tense self.

Sighing, she unbuttons the top of her dress, easily guiding Tom to latch and wincing at the particularly aggressive bite-down. He had been more demanding lately and Millie wasn’t sure when babies start teething, but she would have to figure out how to feed babies without the mash available in the nineteen-sixties. 

Millie shifts, carefully maneuvering herself so she can keep a steady hand on Tom while he feeds, but also to hook a foot around the handle of one of the bags, pulling it towards her so she can grab a book to read. It’s a disconcerting feeling, breastfeeding that is, but she was sure that it was the healthiest option (not to mention cheapest), because her body produced milk for a reason and she wasn’t going to buy formula. 

The book she grabs bound in pale leather, dirt and oil and whatever else the cover had seen maring the white cover into a dull off-white. _‘A History of Magic’_ is embossed on the front in sparkling gold letters, though the paint used on the cover is cracked and faded, the lines and dots of design to create an eye-catching front faded through time and wear. 

The spine cracks as she opens the book, and on the inside of the cover is a list of names both crossed out and smeared, previous owners who had all come to use the book and turn it over to different hands. 

_Magicfolk have strange names_ , she concludes, reading over the various owners who had held this book like she does now. _Annona K. Weasley, Gesneria Vanora Hangclaw, Ordan Petrichorus_ , are all names she can make out under the scribbles of ink. They sound like characters in a book.

With a snort, she flips the page. And promptly almost drops the damn book on Tom’s head. 

Her jolt has Tom opening his mouth in shock, a low cry already starting as he looks up at her with large, watery, betrayed eyes. Sudden movements while holding a baby would be sure to set them off, no matter how harmless.

“Oh no, no, no, no, no.” She rushes to comfort him before he could cry. Tom , while he was an easy and silent baby, had an impressive set of lungs when needed be. “Mummy is sorry, sweet boy, here.”

It’s a weird feeling to be attempting an apology by offering a breast of all things, but Tom accepts it with a sniff and pouting eyes that make her want to coo and press a kiss to his chubby cheeks. She may have woken up in Merope lost and confused, but the strong sense of responsibility that she had carried over had transferred to Tom. It grounded her. 

Millie was very much aware that if Merope did not have Tom, if Merope did not give her a child to raise and care for, that she would not be here. 

It was a grim truth. 

Self-preservation had always been a trait of hers, living even when life felt too gray or dull. There were times that Millie had found herself contemplating death, sat by her favorite window because of the simple view it gave her of her street while she sipped at her tea in thought. 

Death was not an unfamiliar term to Millie. She had buried her parents, had seen neighbors die, and had hidden in shoddily-dug bunkers as the Germans flew above. She had lived through a childhood of war and destruction and came out of it as a haunted youth who had watched her father secretly cry after news of his brother’s death had reached him.

Truthfully, Millie was terrified of what the future would bring. She knew what would happen, remembered and had memorized the dates. London would rebuild, but there would be many who faced inconceivable losses and tribulations. But what could one woman with the knowledge and experience of the future do?

Hitler would still gain power, the war would still happen. Saying or doing anything could have her thrown into a mental institution and Tom ripped from her arms, never to see her precious boy again. 

So Millie was selfish. She could work with that. Just like how she worked with her arthritis (and wasn’t that a blessing that with all of Merope’s terrible flaws, she at least did not have to deal with the deep-ache of her bones as her arthritis flared up) and anything else thrown at her in life. Tom was depending on her to be his mother, whether she truly was or wasn’t; he wouldn’t know, she would always be his Mummy to him.

Carefully, Millie reaches for the book, opening it back up to the page that had startled her. The picture of the author smiled at her, white hair styled back and kind eyes giving her a wink before gesturing for to turn the page. A _moving_ photograph that wasn’t a movie. 

How revolutionary. 

* * *

  
  


_Throughout many magical cultures, the very essence of magic has a different explanation to how it had come about. For example, the Egyptian wizarding communities believe that their magic came from those first made into humans; to put a long, long tale into a few words for pleasure and ease of reading, it is said by the Egyptians that magic was bestowed on the first seven humans able to speak. For Eastern Asian wizarding communities, they believe that their magic was given to them by a koi who swam upstream the Yangtze River in China and turned into a_ _Celestial Dragon_ _(an extinct species of dragon, related to the_ _Chinese Fireball_ _), bestowing magic upon those who had helped the dragon on its journey while it was a koi. Coincidentally, the number of those who had helped the dragon were numbered as seven._

_Master Arithmancers have found that the number seven is a paragonally important number to magical equations, rituals, and spell-making. This theme of seven, while not carried out as heavily as it used to be in Europe―replaced by the more stable number of three―shows a strong and continual foundation in the Asian continent, especially in the magical city-island of_ _ Penglai _ _(also known by the Japanese as_ _Mount_ _Hōrai_ _), known to be the largest settlement of wizards since the fall of_ _ Uruk _ _of Mesopotamia/Sumer, as shown in their impeccable warding where the base number of seven sits heavily in runic equations._

_Magical Researchers however, have found that there are seven major_ _Ley Lines_ _around the world, funnelling the theory that the foundation and blossoming of magic has been dependent on Ley Lines. Ancient wizarding societies have shown to have an advanced understanding of the Ley Lines, moreso than we do now, with the proclaimed_ _Classic Seven Wonders of the World._

_The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, the Temple of Artemis, and the Statue of Zeus at Olympia_ _are all extraordinary works of magic, with very few still existing today. These Seven Wonders have one common factor, and that seems to be either resting at a crossing of Ley Lines (major or minor) or resting upon a major Ley Line._

_Thus, there is great support in the magical research community on the fact that the number seven is somehow intrinsically linked with magic itself, for in larger wizarding families it has been evidenced that a seventh child will be magically more capable than their siblings (with the seventh child of a seventh child being even doubly so), and has led to many wizarding families having one or two children to lower the chance of fratricide/sororicide by children born under the magically enhanced numbers of three, seven, and nine._

_It is with the popularly coined_ _ Seven Theory _ _presented by_ _Melancton Petropoulos_ _, a magical researcher, that the commonly believed origin of magic seems to be from groups who had lived inside the Ley Lines when civilization was new and budding. The saturation of magic in such a place, along with years of living along the Ley Line is believed to have somehow changed the spirit of the person into what we would now recognize as a wizard or witch. This theory however, is heavily disregarded by the more traditionalist side where the tales of creation by Gods are still heavily believed...._

* * *

  
  


_…although the tradition of lighting the winter fires during Samhain at the _ _Hill of Ward_ _in Meath County (known by the locals as_ _Tlachtga Hill_ _or_ _Hill of Tlachtga_ _) to honor the druidess known for discovering the_ _Sacred Stones of Lupa Capitolina_ _in Italy._

_While known for her prowess said to rival that of the sorceress_ _ Morrigen, _ _ Tlachtga’s downfall was tied into her violation by the three sons of _ _ Simon Magnus _ _, commonly known as Simon the Sorcerer, who was her father’s mentor. After her abuse by Simon’s three sons,_ _Tlachtga_ _was said to return to Ireland where she gave birth to triplets named_ _ Cumma, Doirb, _ _and_ _Muach_ _, issued by three different fathers. They were born on the hill that would bear the name of their mother..._

* * *

_...Non-magic people (more commonly known as_ _Muggles_ _) were particularly afraid of_ _magic_ _in medieval times, but not very good at recognising it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or_ _wizard_ _, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or_ _wizard_ _would perform a basic_ _Flame Freezing Charm_ _and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed,_ _Wendelin the Weird_ _enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises._

_Many in the magical community with connections to the Muggle-world began to live double lives, using charms of concealment to protect themselves and their families. During this time, the_ _ Fidelius Charm _ _was invented by_ _Hermia Dumbledore_ _ , Spell-crafting Mistress, as an infallible way to protect wizarding homes from Muggles. Of course, there were a few notable occasions on where the Secret Keeper of the home had turned on their duty. ( _ _Ex. Galvinston Thorax and the Norreys Clan vs the Northern Green Goblins, page 692) _

_Upon the signature of the_ _International Statute of Secrecy_ _in_ _1689_ _, wizards went into hiding for good. It was natural, perhaps, that they formed their own small communities within a community. Many small villages and hamlets attracted several magical families, who banded together for mutual support and protection. The villages of Tinworth in Cornwall, Upper Flagley in Yorkshire, and Ottery St. Catchpole on the south coast of __England_ _are notable homes to knots of Wizarding families who lived alongside tolerant and sometimes_ _Confunded_ _Muggles. Most celebrated of these half-magical dwelling places is, perhaps,_ _Godric's Hollow_ _, the __West Country_ _village where the great wizard_ _Godric Gryffindor_ _was born, and where_ _Bowman Wright_ _, Wizarding smith, forged the first __Golden Snitch_ _. The graveyard is full of the names of ancient magical families, and this accounts, no doubt, for the stories of hauntings that have dogged the little church beside it for many centuries._

_Indeed, the most traumatizing event of wizarding persecution in the Western Hemisphere,_ _T he Salem Witch Trials _ _ (1692-1693) in colonial Massachusetts in the United States (or _ _ MACUSA, Magical Congress of the United States of America) _ _, had led to many witches and wizards who settled in the_ _New World_ _to turn back to their homelands, dissuading immigration to the New World for centuries to come. Out of twenty women murdered, only a few were genuinely witches, with the rest simply being unlucky Muggles swept up by the mass hysteria..._

  
  


* * *

  
  


Agnes gives a waneful smile across the busy dinner table as her son throws yet _another_ tantrum, her hand clamping on the boy’s arm before dragging him away from the cluster of women and children. It’s a busy night tonight, with the majority of the women finally home from their work because of the grace that was Sunday. 

Elmora’s is buzzing, with the majority of the women bonding together to throw a communal dinner for the birthday of their shared landlady. There are additional tables pressed up against the walls with mis-matching chairs squished into the dining room to accommodate as many people possible in the room. 

“Diana, don’t forget the spinach!” A woman calls, handing off a babe in her arms to another woman as the table is set in a flurry of hands.

“I already grabbed the spinach! _You’re_ the one forgetting the gravy!” 

“—Agnes, quiet that child, he’s going to wake the others!” Hannah Cupps scowls across the table. She was known in Elmora’s for being the overworked single-mother of not one, not two, but three children. All of the same father, mind, apparently he died in the Great War.

Agnes, terribly flustered, tucks her squirming son into her arms further despite his size, manhandling him so he can properly sit in her lap. 

It was hard to focus on anything with Agnes’s son throwing one of his infamous tantrums, but Millie’s mind prevailed and she found herself stuck over a loop of thoughts, brimming with anticipation to go back and read despite the fact that she had joined the communal dinner to clear her mind about what she had just read.

_Magic had a history!_ A long and winding history that dated back further than even the barest wisps of what the normal world knew. 

Millie’s mind was still spinning over all of the new revelations and discoveries made in her used-book. Annotations by past owners had made the read all of the more interesting, dates linked together flawlessly by the author in such a way that she had to admit that magicfolk had a way with words. It was easy to see they were _obsessed_ with their histories, recorded witches and wizards living centuries instead of the lucky fifty to sixty years normal people got. 

(She had found notes of someone’s family going back in an unbroken line to the foundation of _Rome_ in one of the index examples.)

It’s honestly amazing how many things she had always acknowledged as a mystery in the world, to actually be accredited to wizards and witches. The famous Stonehenge, for example, had been around since the Druidic Age in Britain, four-thousand years prior. (The fact that _Camelot_ and all of the Arthurian tales she had taken as just stories were genuinely _real_ — _Merlin_ was real, _Arthur_ was real, _Guinevere_ was real, _Morgana_ and _Nimue_ were all _real_ —had her rereading that particular section over and over until the shock wore off.)

A genuine mystery to non-magical researchers and historians of _how_ and _why_ the Stonehenge was built, easily shoved into a neat little paragraph talking about how conduits of magic had changed through the millennia. 

Apparently, the change from staves to wands had taken place around the time the Romans had invaded Britain, the Roman wizards having stolen the idea from the Greeks, where the _Greeks_ had taken it from—

_Well_. There was a lot in magical history that still had her head spinning and her fingers excitedly tapping to read more. She had always been a history nerd, devouring books upon books in the library at Headington when she was still a student, that love transferring over in precarious stacks of books around her small house as the bookshelves were all filled. 

She’s snapped out of her thoughts as the chair next to her scrapes back, the jarring sound having her turn to the person. Dorothy smiles widely, curly hair bouncing in her bright mood.

“Oh, Merope! How good it is to see you out of your room! I saw you went shopping today, anything interesting? Dennis and I went out to buy him some new pants, that boy is growing faster than my hands can stitch!” She chortles, passing the peas over to Theresa across the table before looking at her lap and to the empty chair with furrowed brows. “Where’s little Tom?”

“He settled down early,” Millie explains, scooping some mash onto her plate. “I just bought some books. The funds my relative gave me are enough for some frivolous spending.” 

Dorothy nods, “Well lucky you, having some rich relative stashed away somewhere? I heard you paid Beatrice for two whole months. Even Dennis’s father isn’t so generous with my allowance.” 

Some of the women at the table turn tilt their heads surreptitiously, eyes low as Dorothy’s loud voice fills up their small corner. 

Millie gives a blandly polite smile. “Yes well, my relative has sympathy for single mothers.” 

It isn’t a lie. Whatever history Spurius Slytherin had with single mothers had led to a progressive viewpoint that had saved her and Tom from _real_ poverty. 

“Lucky you.” Agnes says from her spot, green eyes tired as she wrestled her son into sitting still.

The comment is a little more than snappish, but any retort Millie has dies down as Beatrice calls the women to attention. 

  
  


“Thank you all for this celebration and to those who could attend, I’m truly touched. The Home has been exactly what I just called it, a home...”

Dorothy leans in, her voice low. “She does this every year. It’s the same speech word-for-word on every special occasion.” 

A glance at some of the other women does indeed show that this must be a common occasion as they all smile politely towards Beatrice. One of the women is even mouthing the words. 

“...so I give my thanks to the King and God, for we are blessed to live together in such a place everyone can find a home. I also thank my Great-Aunt Elmora, for her ingenious idea of opening up her Home for Needy Women.” 

* * *

  
  


Millie feels like she looks like a drowned rat as she toes the first step into Gringotts. The umbrella in her hand is easily folded, had been since she went through the Leaky, and was borrowed from Dorothy. 

Unfortunately, Millie was not aware of whatever magic keeps the Alleys nice and dry, because when she looks up, she can see the rain fall and slide off some invisible barrier. 

Magic is amazing, once you got over the whole impossibility of it all.

Stepping into Gringotts, she give a look around the opulent lobby, admiring the waxing shine of the floors before catching sight of Urglank the Five-Handed at his own teller stand. 

Like the first time she had been to Gringotts, there are tellers with long and winding line and those with little to anyone at all. 

“Miss Gaunt,” Urglank greets, spindly hands curving over the edge of his tall test to give himself a better view of Millie. “How may I assist you?” 

“Good day, Urglank. I have an inquiry on whether Gringotts handles anything pertaining to unemployment?” 

A goblin over a few desks snarls at the wizard below him, pink skin flushing an ugly purple as the wizard stumbles back. Heads turn to the scene curiously, with many quickly whipping away at another snarl from the irate teller. 

Urglank shuffles the papers in front of him, looking displeased as he disappears behind the desk to grab something below. 

“Typically the Department of Employment handles these affairs.” Urglank beckons Millie with a clawed finger to follow him along the tall desks until they reach the door that leads to the hallway of offices. The goblin holds the door open for her, a quiet thanks being met with his small sneer. They stop in front of a door a few feet down, Urglank opening the door without holding it open for her, leaving Millie to quickly throw her hands up, lest have the wood smash into her face.

“But because of your _…past_ , Gringotts has done the service of _research_ over your person. Tell me, Miss Gaunt, are you aware that the last Gaunt to attend Hogwarts or recieve a full education was Opaline Gaunt in eighteen-twelve?” 

Millie settles into one of the chairs, smoothing out the creases in her dress. “No, I was not aware.” 

Beady eyes narrow before the goblin gives a sniff, muttering something lowly. “Miss Gaunt, it has come to our attention that you are an uneducated and untrained witch. Normally this can lead to a report to the Hogwarts Board of Directors or the Branch of Magical Education, _however_ , your status as the only scion of the Houses Gaunt and Slytherin being in service with Gringotts has led to a bit of a conundrum.”

He eyes her, pulling out a sheaf of papers before passing it over. “Your absence of O.W.L.s or N.E.W.T.s has and will lead to a struggle in you applying or searching for employment. With Gringotts, you can pay a fee for us to handle your testing so that you may have a record.” 

“These...O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, just how important are they?” Millie asks. She came in for a simple exchange of currency and was met with more as administerial paperwork. How lovely.

“O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s are the standardized testing in which wizards or witches take to show their understanding and prowess in the basic branches of magic.” Urglank replies, folding his gnarled fingers over the desk. “I will be frank to say that with the lack of education and training, Miss Gaunt, your wisest choice will be leaving money in your vault for simple interest to take place.”

Her heart thuds in her ears, eyes focused on Urglank as his words settle over her like a calming blanket. Of course finding employment in the magical world wouldn’t be so easy. Despite the more Victorian aesthetic they had going on, it would make sense for them to have infrastructure just like the world she was used to. 

_Uneducated. Untrained._

“Is there any way I can receive education?” Knowledge was important. Education was important. Mum had always driven that point home when her grades flagged in her earlier years at Headington, scolding a much younger Millie on taking her opportunities for granted. 

“It will cost a fee of seventy galleons.” 

“I don’t have seventy galleons available to me.” She wouldn’t have money until the next midwinter from Spurius Slytherin’s progressive allowance. 

“Then I apologize, Miss Gaunt. As a scion of House Gaunt, you are entitled to your _own_ share of funds allocated either by your liege house or Lord of House. I recommend looking for employment in the Alley if you are desperately concerned with your private monetary affairs.” He unfolded his hands, looking expectantly at Millie. “Now that that is concluded, I assume you are here to exchange currency? A Muggle pound has gone up by fourteen knuts.” 

She resists the urge to throw her wand at the goblin, despite his helpful words. Frustration was not a becoming thing to wallow in, but this last month alone has been an experience Millie could confidently say she would’ve never expected, no matter how adaptable she was. Of course she would lack in some way. _Of course._

Millie hands her wand over for identification. Unlike some of the wands she had tried in Ollivander’s, her wand looked more like an actual _wand_ than a stick. The willow wood was light, a careful braided carving separating the ‘hilt’ of her wand from the rest. The tip of her wand curved ever so slightly, as if the carver’s hand had slipped when whittling it down. 

Urglank inspected the wand, running a claw down the length of it before nodding at whatever he assessed. 

“A pleasure in doing business with you, Miss Gaunt.” 

She leaves Gringotts with her coinpurse a little heavier. 

* * *

  
  
  


Tom watches her with sleepy eyes as she pours over a heavy-marked spellbook. 

It was nothing special, just things that she could use for everyday life to make her own life a little bit easier. When in _Parchment Pressed Tomes_ she had almost missed the little book hidden between a pile of dusty scrolls. 

_A Witch’s Handbook of Household Spells by Nolwenn Pyrite_ had looked to be promising, and if she could find a spell to mend the blanket she had been sleeping with had a large hole at the bottom that made her feet freeze up overnight, then that would be all the better.

Honestly, if someone had given Millie a glimpse into her future the year before (she had saw a mention of a Seer in _A History of Magic_ and thanked the Lord that Merope wasn’t some sort of prophet, but that then had opened up a whole slew of questions that had her questioning her faith to the point that it was better to not think of), she would’ve laughed herself silly. 

It was no laughing matter living in it. 

Wand held tightly in her right hand, she shifts herself to the edge of the bed until her socked feet touch the cool floor. Merope is tiny compared to how she originally was and while it may be disorienting at times to wake up and realize she wasn’t in her own body anymore, it was more annoying to have to grab a stool to reach the higher cupboards in the kitchen. 

She traces the wand-motion diagrammed in the book with her wand, mouthing the pronunciation for the incantation before she felt confident enough to cast. Something like eager apprehension began to build in her chest, a childish feeling that she equated to summers she spent at home away from Headington, jumping from the tree branches in her home’s backyard to feel that windy rush before landing. 

Millie breathes, eyes focusing on the tarnished silver platter propped up on display down in the dining room. Beatrice had complained of never managing to fully clean it properly and what better test subject would she find? 

“Focus, Millie. Focus.” She mutters, lifting her wand. 

There's a rush of something from her chest as she begins to trace the wand movement, her brows furrowing as she pushes herself to _focus_ just on the effect she wants and the platter. 

_“Scourgify.”_

The sound of someone scrubbing accompanied by a sheen of metal fills the bated silence. Millie blinks trying not to feel _too_ surprised when she looks at the considerably less-tarnished platter. The spellbook _did_ say that certain things would take multiple uses of the charm before becoming fully clean. 

_Still_. 

Excitement burbles over until it bursts and she finds herself laughing in disbelief, wonder, and excitement. Her body hums with an unfamiliar feeling and her wand is warm in her hand. She really did it. 

_Her first spell._

“Did you see that Tom?” She breathes, staring at the platter with awed eyes. “Mummy did magic!”

She casts the spell three more times until the platter is shining like new, for once not disturbed by the reflection in the silver (even if warped), any negative emotion overtaken by her giddiness to the point she jumps up from the bed and does a little jig in her room. Tom watches with solemn eyes. 

“Magic! Actual magic!” Millie laughs, as if she hadn’t seen proof of it already. Goblins, Diagon Alley, spellbooks--”I’m a witch! A real witch! Oh, how I would’ve _loved_ to put some sort of spell on Missus Murphy in school!” 

She sweeps Tom into her arms as she dances around the room, a careful hand cupping the back of his head as she slows her more excited movements into something more graceful and gentle as she holds her month-old son. Magic opened a well of opportunities and while she maybe uneducated in magic, an honest-to-gods cheat held in the sewn-in pockets of her dresses’ skirts would at least have her on a crutch she would otherwise not have. 

Who knows, Millie may even be able to find an actual job in the magical world if she learned enough basic spells. There had to be occupations or small things that didn’t require much magic, right? 

Maybe she could find a spell to duplicate her normal money. With the cleverness of goblins, she was sure that they wouldn’t take it well if she handed over fake money. She shivered thinking of it. Didn’t Alla Fawcett say something about Goblin Wars? 

“Goblin Wars or not, life has gotten much easier,” she says aloud as Tom’s hand curls into her clothes. “We’ll be on our own before you know it, Tom.” 

She had to. London wouldn’t be safe in the years to come. Millie knew of it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm terrible at pacing stories, so Merope will definitely be a slowburn. But, Millie's first try at magic! I don't know what to do next chapter, but we will see about Millie getting more paperwork done (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) along with whatever else. I honestly don't outline anything so everything is basically just written by a whim and I just get ideas of major things I want to happen in my stories and try to reach those parts. Terrible, I know.
> 
> Thank you all for your patience and wonderful comments! I read all of them and honestly I just don't know how to reply without rambling and accidentally giving away spoilers or sounding insincere, so I kinda just...don't reply. Bad, I know. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> Just a note, the last excerpt from A History of Magic is largely copied by J.K. Rowling's version although altered to fit my own little worldbuilding itch. 
> 
> M.B. Westover


	6. Plattered on the Mind of Troubles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A tiny change today brings a dramatically different tomorrow.”  
> ― Richard Bach

Breakfast was a quiet affair, consisting of only her, Tom, and another woman who lived at Elmora’s whom she did not have the pleasure of knowing. Not that it would make much difference. Millie was limited to only Tom, Dorothy, and her landlady—on the occasion Beatrice was actually in-house. Which, interestingly enough, was becoming rare. 

“Pass the salt please, will you?” Millie looks up from her plate of hash, meeting the steady eyes of the other woman before passing over both the salt and pepper shakers from in front of her plate. It seemed that her like of copious amounts of salt on a dish had transferred over from when she was properly  _ herself _ . 

She nods her thanks as Millie turns back to her food, casting surreptitious glances over to herself and Tom as the woman sprinkles salt over her food. 

Beatrice had yet to see the polished platter, but Millie wanted to keep it in her room until her landlady came back in case one of the women _ (Peggaline) _ tried to accuse her of filching things from Elmora’s. Despite the fact that so many of the women here were living through similar roads of life, there was little camaraderie inspired by the fact that they were all single mothers, living in London of all places (many of the women worked late into the nights, factory jobs being the most available and demanding of simple trades) where the local gangs were more likely to cut you up than finding ten pounds on the side of the road. 

Besides, there was a competitive streak that roused itself in all of the women here that Millie tried her best to stay out of. She already gave herself a hard time, being in a body that isn’t hers, a time that isn’t hers, and in a situation she would have never imagined or dreamed of happening.

“Are you still searching for a job?”

Millie blinks. “Pardon?”

The other woman’s brows furrow, dark eyes flashing as she looks at Tom before turning her gaze back to Millie. “Dorothy said something about you not having a job yet. I heard at dinner the other night that you got funds from a relative, but we both know that kindness to women like us doesn't typically last. So I’ll ask again: _Are you still searching for a job?”_

Disbelief is surely showing on her face, because Millie can’t even conjure up the woman’s name, nevertheless any time she has spoken to her. Dorothy was kind, but spoke too loud and much too freely to ever be someone Millie would ever find truly trusting, and while she knew that the women around the house may know about her financial situation, she feels as if she is being judged for some reason or the other. 

She purses her lips, stabbing a fork into her hash and breaking eye-contact with those dark, steady eyes. “I don’t see why that’s any of your business.”

“No,” the other woman says shortly, shrugging. “But I thought to let you know that the tailor down on Villiers Street is hiring.”

For a moment, her mouth runs dry. “Are you trying to insinuate something?”

Dark eyes study her, lips twisting in dry amusement before she shrugs again, collecting her empty plate and standing from the table. “Nothing to insinuate. We are all single mothers here. Best not act too  _ uppity  _ when you have a face like that.”

And like that, she leaves the room, the clatter of dishes in the sink and the running of water doing little to distract her from what the other woman just said. She isn’t  _ wrong— _ as loathe as Millie is to admit, but she had been avoiding Villiers Street for the whole reason that it had only been a few short years since the war ended. 

Men were not the same after war. 

She clenches her jaw, a hand clenching and unclenching around the cheap metal of her fork as Tom babbles softly beside her, chubby hands waving about. He had been filling out quite a bit since the money from Spurius Slytherin. There was enough food for themselves that Millie didn’t have to rely on cheap pub food from  _ The Leaky Cauldron _ or Dorothy’s leftovers that she passed over to her out of pity and her own kindness. 

Still. She was getting distracted. 

Villiers Street wasn’t that far off, running along Charing Cross. It had a reputation, especially after the Great War, where men sought entertainment in the hooded shadows of arches where women struggled to piece together their lives as widows or were deliberately wanton, taking advantage of the mental sickness that permeated war-scarred men in exchange for money.

It didn’t matter how many pubs, theatres, music halls, and restaurants dotted the street, if she was caught walking after dark it wouldn’t look too good. Merope was ugly, and while Millie possessed a will to stand up for herself, years under her own family’s hands did not make a woman such as Merope grow into a confident figure, no matter how straight or sure she walked in her new body. 

Frailty had been beaten into Merope, and it reflected in the slope of her slouching back and instinctively hunched shoulders that Millie did her best to straighten, no matter how hopeless it was. 

Money was money in the end, and so Millie finds herself cursing as she cleans up her plate and hurriedly puts everything away so she can push whatever thoughts begin clouding her mind and take herself and Tom upstairs. She still had yet to finish any of the books she bought from  _ Parchment Pressed Tomes,  _ and Tom was due for his nap soon anyways. Not only that, she had yet to parse through whatever paperwork Missus Cole had stuffed into her pack when she left, besides, Jenny had written a letter that one of the women in Elmora’s had disbelievingly passed over to Millie this morning. 

The sugar is sticky under her hands as she scrubs as her plate, the water unpleasantly cold to the point that she has to stop rinsing the dishes several times to wipe her hands on the skirt of her dress to press some semblance of warmth back in. 

Quickly drying the dishes and putting them where they should be, she catches sight of Agnes sipping tea in one of the nooks off to the side of the pantry, for once missing her hellion of a child by her side. Her tired form is almost pitiful—she hasn’t had the easiest of times in Elmora’s, according to Dorothy—but whatever empathy she feels is quickly swept away as Tom begins to fuss and she has to scurry over to sweep him into her arms. 

It’s almost hard to believe that it has been a little over a month since she had awoken in her strange situation, but the proof is in her arms as his dark eyes bore into the side of her face. Tom has been getting heavier and she’s sure he’s hitting whatever milestones babes are supposed to reach at his age (or at least, she hopes he is) because he’s been more interactive with the way he seems to focus on things fully and attempts to clumsily grab whatever is in reach and interests him enough. 

Truthfully, Millie cannot wait until Tom has grown to the point of being able to form coherent sentences and actually begin to think for himself, because at least she will be able to  _ communicate  _ with him instead of verging on tearing her hair out of her head during the few instances he does cry. Which isn’t a lot. Tom is an easy baby, thank her lucky stars, but he has a pair of lungs that can put Agnes’s boy to shame when roused enough. 

“Come on, sweet boy.” Millie hums, pushing their bedroom door open with her hip. The hinges are worn and weak, ready to be replaced or repaired as it creaks loudly, swinging open with ease. She foots the door, shutting it with a quick sweep of her leg that is more graceful than she thought it would be, short as Merope is, before making her way to Tom’s crib. 

He babbles, a pink tongue peeking out between pressed baby lips as his eyes cross over his still-squished nose to focus on the loose piece of hair that comes out from the bun she has tied up on the base of her nape. A chubby fist swings out to grab it, but Millie already has him settled, leaning back from the crib and instead bending her knees so she can reach down without leaning over. Her fingers trace over his face, his skin baby soft. It’s a trick she has come to recently learn that puts him to sleep the quickest, after one night where she had laid him in bed with her and traced his features in a marvel that he was not as ugly as Merope. 

Carefully, she steps away from the crib, eyeing the small form before turning away to reach for the pack she received at Wool’s Orphanage. There’s a shuffle of worn leather and the faintest scrape of a buckle before she jerks the whole thing towards her so the metal doesn’t wake Tom. 

“Alright.” She mutters to herself, retrieving the stack of papers and setting the bag down carefully. There’s no desk in the room so she shuffles over to the small bed pressed up against the wall and seats herself as quietly as one can on a mattress full of springs that squeak and squeal. 

The first page is handwritten, letters neatly squished together as her eyes flick over the page. It’s a note from Missus Cole over basic handling of a babe and while she wishes she read over the papers earlier, there's still enough relief that washes through her that makes Millie really realize how much she has been winging this whole ‘Mom’ thing. 

Life as Millie Fontenot saw little romance and even littler chances of ever starting a family. She was the odd recluse who lived in her childhood home, her parents buried in the back garden beside her childhood cat, under the flowerbeds of hollyhocks her Mum used to care for and swore she wanted to be buried under. Papa was buried next to her simply because he wanted to be, stubbornly insisting it to the point that Millie had found him halfway to digging his own literal grave next to his late wife’s when the rest of their distant Fontenot relations insisted that he should be buried in their home country of France, nevermind the fact that Papa was raised all his life in dreary England. 

She sighs, lips twisting up into a sad sort of smile before she flips the page for a cursory look if there's anything on the back before moving on. In the stack she finds all sort of important papers she can’t believe she didn’t think about before, such as Tom’s birth certificate and the fact that she should’ve registered Tom’s birth, but thankfully Missus Cole had handled that. There was a note folded cleverly on the top of the birth certificate, reminding Millie that Tom should get baptised, because the more records there were on a child, the easier it became in the long run, especially during this time period. 

There’s more paperwork that more or less devolves into proof that Wool’s Orphanage provided for her during her time of need, an unusual receipt, but seemingly important enough that the little voice in the back of her head niggles at her to keep it. Just in case. 

A day trip to Diagon Alley was neatly scheduled into her mental calendar. She would have to get a lock box to keep whatever important documents she collected together and she couldn’t think of anything safer than something made by  _ magic  _ when she was surrounded by normal people daily, but maybe she could ask the goblins to keep her documents? There was a stipulation on one of the contracts she signed that the Goblin Nation would protect and safekeep whatever possession given to them in service. 

And wouldn’t she have to register Tom’s birth in the magical world? They had a government of their own, separate from normalfolk’s so it would make sense if they had their own separate registry as well. 

Nodding to herself, she almost misses the slip of paper that flops out as she shuffles everything back together and— _ Oh. _

She stares at the paperwork, her own damning scrawl on the bottom line in ignorant trust because as she stares and stares and  _ stares _ ; Millie realizes that the paper she was given at the bank was nothing more than flowery words because of course divorce is much more harder to attain in this decade than it was in the nineteen-fifties or nineteen-sixties, how was she so  _ stupid— _

Her jaw clenches, a sharp exhale being the only thing that keeps her from angrily crumpling the paper in hand and the fact that she didn’t pay anything being the only thing that stops her from shrieking in anger because Mister E. Towery had provided her with lip service and paperwork that was probably made to distract people like  _ Merope _ . 

She inhales deeply, snapping the paper straight and setting it on the top of the stack in her lap. There’s a rare shine ofa winter sun peeking through her drawn curtains, illuminating the dusty floorboards she needs to wash because Tom will soon reach the age of butt-scooting  _ and  _ it’ll be better to start a cleaning habit now so it becomes effortless to squeeze in when Tom reaches a clingy stage  _ and— _

— _ And  _ she needs to schedule a day trip out to Merope’s hometown  _ (where Sister Edith had read out silly things given to her by an odd girl on the cusp of womanhood. Little Hangleton, where a young man was tricked into a marriage that he didn’t want) _ , because no matter how much she doesn’t want that to happen, it was bound to at some point, fake divorce papers or not. 

“Damn it all to hell.” 

* * *

  
  


Tom’s heavy in her arms as she shifts him to her other hip. They had been in line for over an hour, his small form bundled up in whatever extra scap Millie could find as today had been colder than the rest, the chill of winter creeping between the loose floorboards and sweeping doors of Elmora’s.

There’s a teary-eyed old woman that passes by, the young man at her side who helps her step off the curb—presumably her son—as they exit the shop. They speak in another language, her weepy tone a contrast to her son’s soothing one that makes her look down at the babe in her arms and wonders if perhaps that will be her in forty or so years, still stuck in Merope’s body, but at least with something she had raised as her own. 

Perhaps.

The line moves forward, warm air blasting her cheeks and cold ears tucked under her cap as she passes under the shop’s sign. _ ‘Pawnbroker’  _ is inscribed in bright red over the door, and so Millie fumbles with her mittens to pull off the ring on her left hand. 

It wasn’t hers anyways.

* * *

The tickets are a soothing relief that she is acutely aware of as she shoves it into the sewn-in pocket of her dress. She doesn’t have a good coat yet, the only one she does own currently in Dorothy’s possession as Millie is hopeless with a needle and thread. 

The company printed on the tickets isn’t one she is familiar with, but the railway system here in the United Kingdom was just starting to boom, the aftermath of the Spanish Flu having people travel more than ever over the country lines that separate the Isles. The British Rail was the locomotive giant in her own time and most likely replaced the LMS, LNER, or whatever else the rest of the companies were called. 

Little Hangleton is to the north-west of England where it’s colder and drearier than down here in busy London. She’ll have to ask Dorothy if she could finish patching up her jacket soon because the date printed on her train tickets is only two days away. 

There’s an odd sort of trepidation building in her chest that she can’t quite place but brushes it off as nerves. She’s wearing the face of someone’s abuser, so of course she should be cautious. What she’s seen of Merope’s life isn’t something she would wish on anyone, but it doesn’t excuse the girls actions—girl because Merope’s mental state wasn’t one of a grown woman and Millie can remember being eighteen and smitten with the young milkman who was a good five years her senior and with a thick Cockney accent she could barely understand.

“It adds to the charm.” a young Millie would say, rolling her eyes as Cathy Hayslip would start laughing between inhales of her fag that she swiped from her mum. “Besides, I don’t see  _ you  _ complaining about looks; with the way you moon over Greg Campbell.”

Cathy would only snort, because her and Millie weren’t friends, but rather two people who found each other because they were on their lonesome in Headington, not quite fitting in with the more preppy and scholarly-bound girls who mooned over the little male faculty they had in an all-girls school. Cathy Hayslip was a lonely girl who disguised it under her gruff speech and prickly personality, just like how Millie Fontenot retreated into quietness and worrying over her early-onset arthritis rather than her studies. 

Tom is warm as she shifts the shawl over her shoulders to cover his little back, the little gray coat that seemed entirely too small to even be a proper piece of clothing when she pulled it out of the wardrobe this morning before heading off to the station, now a protection against the English chill. 

She wonders what Merope’s in-laws are like, to live in a small town like Little Hangleton. That thought quickly devolves into wondering if maybe they look like Tom’s father, but she quickly nips that because  _ what is she thinking, _ she's no more a Riddle than she is truly Merope Gaunt, nineteen and abandoned by her stolen husband.

The shawl around her shoulders is a relief as she steps back out into London proper, a few cars buggying past on their thin wheels. Maybe if she scraped enough money together she could invest into a car company. Now  _ that  _ was a thought.

She had about forty years ahead of the market, but the Great Slump was up and coming at a pace that had her mentally screaming to save and squirrel away as much as she could before it took its toll on the economy. There would be a recovery, but Millie wasn’t keen on being in such a big city when the war took off, no matter how good jobs may be when people got extra in their pockets once again. 

Her heels click-clack with many others as she joins the swelling pedestrians on the pavement, feet bringing her to the destination she had in mind: Charing Cross. 

Her eyes are instantly drawn to the sign sticking out above the pub’s windows, normalfolk quickly glancing over it as if a whole building wasn’t three, and perhaps to them, it wasn’t. With what she has read about magic, magicfolk were adamant in hiding what they could of their existence. Millie couldn’t blame them either, with how tense and fraught with tragedy each meeting the two societies had each other. 

If she hadn’t done that spell on that tarnished platter, Millie wouldn’t believe in magic either, no matter the amount of evidence that proved that it did exist. 

There’s a rowdy table of older men with graying hair that has Tom’s little head turning over on his other cheek as they shoot off a crackle of sparks from their wands. Alla Fawcett, the publican, is already swooping towards them, her mouth set into a stern frown as she scolds the group, a tray of drinks levitating neatly behind her. 

It’s the first time she’s brought Tom out with her on a day trip. Millie had been beginning to feel bad about all the ‘favors’ she asked of Dorothy, the cheery woman never saying ‘no’ unless it was Wednesday, because Wednesdays are when she visits Dennis’s father. 

Honestly, the woman was a lifesaver. All the set-aside meals, free babysitting, and helping hand she extended out towards Millie more times than she could count had firmly placed Dorothy in the mental box of ‘Saint.’ She could only hope that the more lifeskills she learned through magic (only a fool wouldn’t use a cheat in life that was easily available to them), the more she could become less reliant on others. 

“Merope!” Alla greets cheerfully, her wand sweeping in front of her as the levitating tray behind her floats over to the bar, landing gently on the countertop. Her hair is a pretty shade of auburn, loose curls escaping from the band that holds back her hair from her face, framing the bar-wench’s face. It makes Millie miss her own honeyed brown hair that shone prettily under the sun. 

“Alla,” Millie greets, nodding her head to the other woman. The witch had an uncanny ability to memorize names with faces, but then again, Millie wasn’t an uncommon visitor to the Leaky. It was the Gateway anyways, so Alla probably had a great many more faces memorized as she handled the pub and entrance to Diagon Alley. “May I get an order of some of that potato soup? It’s been chilly out there.”

“It’ll cost ya a couple of knuts.” Alla says, sweeping off as Millie shifts her hold on Tom to pull out her coin purse and dig for a few of the bronze coins that seemed to be the magical equivalent to pennies. She still had yet to fully wrap her head around translating how much in normal money was worth in magical money, but Millie didn’t think that she would ever be able to, with the way it fluctuated so wildly that Millie wondered if only the goblins truly knew what was worth what the moment it changed. They probably did. Goblins were intelligent creatures, from what she had seen and drawn upon from her interactions with Urglank and Grimclaw. 

She seats herself just two barstools away from her usual seat—that one is taken by a slouching man in a trenchcoat three sizes too big—Tom settled on her front with his little head against her collarbone, burbling to himself in babyish tones. 

The potato soup is settled in front of her from an absent wave of the publican’s wand, the thick cream making up the broth spilling over a bit on the sides so when she reaches out with her free hand to steady the floating bowl, some of the excess smear on her fingers. 

She wipes off her hand on her dress skirt, almost immediately cringing at the thought of washing it out when the stain will irrevocably set in. Having a washing machine was a luxury she never paid much attention until she found herself hunched over a laundry tub, scrubbing her pitifully small wardrobe consisting of things people had given to her, nothing bought.

If she was a more frivolous woman, this would be more of a problem than she thought it to be, but as it was, any frivolity was entirely snuffed out the moment she realized where she was, who she was, and that her financial situation may likely never be the same. Merope wasn’t the best looking of candidates, but the days grew nearer to each other and she worried once again what she would do when coin began to run low. Millie had already taken to saving what she had from Spurius Slytherin, but as generous of a sum it was, there was no predicting what could happen when living in nineteen-twenties London. Just the other day, she had overheard a few women complaining about local gangs finally encroaching in on the area. 

Millie had forgotten how much more peaceful England was during her own time. Guns were still a thing, but they weren’t as heavily paraded around as they were now, war-torn men returning home with the clank of shells in their ears and the shake of the earth underneath their feet. They probably felt some sort of peace or safety with a gun on their hip, not that she would blame them. The Great War was terrible, controversial opinions aside from the second one that was around the corner, but it was more brutal and hard on the men than the second World War was. 

The soup is warm on her tongue, just a tad bit too plain for her tastes, but Millie always preferred dousing her dishes in salt. Mum would always laugh when she grabbed the salt shaker, a quip about how she must be trying to expel demons from her body with the amount of salt she used, never failing to make Millie shake her head and chuckle. 

* * *

Beatrice positively beams over the polished silver platter that Millie presents her that evening, thanking her profusely before shooting off question after question in just  _ how  _ she managed to make it look like new.

“It’s a personal secret of mine,” Millie says, trying to not let an amused smile break out on her lips as her landlady stares at her wobbled reflection in the shining platter. She had done much the same when she performed her first spell, amazed and wondrous like a girl once again before she danced around the room with Tom in her arms. “I could do the whole set if you like?”

“Oh, could you?” Beatrice tilts her head, her reflection glinting as she then turns dark eyes to Millie. “You gave me a right fright, once I noticed this platter was gone. I was just like a mare’s nest when I noticed it missing! I had thought it was stolen—it was an heirloom set from my grandmother, you see, I can’t give into myself to get rid of it despite the fact that there's no need for silver like this in our modern days!”

Millie almost snorts _. Modern days indeed._

Instead she gives a polite chuckle, crinkling her eyes to give the illusion of amusement off better as Beatrice devolves into full conversation with her, though still trying to know just how she managed to clean all of the tarnish off, her poorly concealed questions more bold than a naked man in church. 

Still, there was nothing wrong with being on at least friendly terms with your landlord, nevermind the fact that Millie doesn’t think that any woman had been kicked from Elmora’s, even if they didn’t manage to pay rent. Agnes was—as she heard from hushed gossip in the stairwell that led to the back garden where all the woman did their laundry and let the older ones run around—at least two months behind on rent, but Beatrice had a mother’s heart despite not having children of her own, a side-effect everyone gave credit to how much she spent at Elmora’s, so being kicked was as likely to none.

The thought of being behind on rent was unthinkable to Millie though. As sparse and basic as her room was, it wasn’t truly hers. She was a tenant, bound to one day find accommodations she could hopefully fully call her own. And it would happen. Millie would be sure that they would get out of London, if not through normal means than by magic. 

“It would be no problem. I am sorry about giving you a fright, I just wanted to keep it as a surprise if I couldn’t manage to really clean it. Didn’t want to get your hopes up.” The lie is sweet on her tongue and Beatrice gives a cheery laugh, waving off her words. 

“Oh, don’t worry about it much, Merope! This is better than I had expected; I thought one of the women had taken it for a pawnbroker. I was about two pennies close to barging down everyone’s doors and demanding their things. I’m glad that you took it instead, Mary had told me that you were a kind soul when she referred you here and I’m glad to see that it’s true.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I want to apologize to everyone who has been kind enough to leave kudos, comments, and bookmarks on Merope. In November I had left the last update with around 240ish Kudos and a much, MUCH smaller audience of readers. I did not expect in my unnanounced absence/leave that I would come back to around 400 kudos and much more bookmarks! It inspired me to write again and pushed me to continue because I understand what it is like to find something and be dismayed at how long it has been since an update--so this one is for you guys, really. 
> 
> To give an explanation for my absence would be much, much too long and winded so I will boil it down to a few points. My cat unexpectedly passed away around early December and I fell into a depression that went unchecked longer than usual--he was my comfort animal, with so many more years ahead of him instead of the four years he had lived. I was holding onto any sort of semblance of normalicy by not updating, as it felt like a part of him was with me with my stories and I was not yet ready to move on. He was my little co-writer, sitting practically in my arms as I typed up every chapter and story I have posted. Secondly, my laptop gave out. I have a new PC and I have spent time just trying to enjoy myself by playing games and all-around dissociating from the world. Thirdly, I am a nursing major. this means that I am very, very busy and what I do write is all from the little free time that I have. Nursing is a very demanding major and a lot of getting into the program is literally a lottery that puts your ticket in only if you have stellar grades. 
> 
> I know that these may sound like empty excuses to many of you, I had spent time reading and posting poems and incompleted works after my cat passed, but these were all me trying to cope and heal with suddenly feeling more alone than ever. I know I promised a longer and more plot-oriented chapter, but this is what came out--but we are progressing more onto plot! I genuinely suck at pacing and get stuck in wondering if I'm moving too fast or too slow that it ends up compromising whatever inspiration I can dredge up. Next chapter we will see Millie/Merope travelling to Little Hangleton and all that comes with that! 
> 
> Thank you all for sticking around and a big hug to all my new readers. I really do appreciate every single one of you.

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from FF.net


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